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Essential Artists

Essential Artists #17: From Alex Warren to Becca Hatch

This week’s data-driven roundup of artists killing it around the world and in Australia this week

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Start next week right by getting across the biggest and the hottest new music around – as usual, I’ve taken a look at which artists are bagging the most spots (especially those punching above their weight) on both the best Australian playlists and on New Music Fridays around the world.

Don’t forget there are two dashboards you can play with via the site if you want to get into the raw data behind it, one for Australia and one for the New Music Friday stuff.

These are the artists who caught my eye this week:

1. The top five global superstars with new releases:

2. Five artists punching above their weight around the world this week:

  • LOCKWARD – No es tu estilo (single)
  • BAMBII – Level Up (single)
  • Dahi – Black Boy (Alternative) (album)
  • YOSHI – La gravedad y el tiempo. (single)
  • Andrea Bejar – Wild Woman (single)

3. In terms of Australian artists, these are the acts (& their releases) seeing playlisters at home and abroad making bets that they’ll be taking it to the next level soon:

You want to know why they’re on my list this week? Let’s find out!

The artists killing it on New Music Friday playlists around the world this week

First of all, these are the big five – these are the artists you’ll probably be hearing the most about this week. This is the ‘well, duh’ section – you’re supposed to know they’ve all got new stuff out, but if you don’t, these are the near-unanimous picks for Biggest Beasts this week.

The releases that put them on the top of the pile this week:

Anyway, New Music Fridays are always dominated by the bold-faced names – but if you look hard enough you can spot the up-and-comers too.

These are five artists (and their releases) that I’ve spotted being disproportionately supported around the world compared to their size, the acts being given hyper-valuable playlist real estate *before* they’ve blown up for real.

The releases – and the support – that made them standouts this week:

  • LOCKWARD – No es tu estilo (single)
    • An absolutely massive performance from this emerging Caribbean artist, snagging a huge range of slots around the world, by far the strongest performance from an artist of this size
  • BAMBII – Level Up (single)
    • This fixture of the Canadian club scene proved their global chops this week, with spots in a whopping 26 NMFs all around the globe
  • Dahi – Black Boy (Alternative) (album)
    • With a terrifying list of high-profile producer credits and connections behind him, this debut album from Dahi comes with high-grade credentials, propelling its tracks onto NMFs in a broad range of markets
  • YOSHI – La gravedad y el tiempo. (single)
    • This loping, easy-going number from YOSHI only made it onto three NMFs this week, but they were basically the biggest three NMFs going, giving the track whopping global reach
  • Andrea Bejar – Wild Woman (single)
    • No surprises to see both the Global and Mexico NMFs backing this track, but the addition of a spot in Japan strongly hints at broad global appeal too

The artists killing it on the best new music playlists in Australia (and globally) this week

Back here in Oz though, we want to know who’s getting the most attention from a broader, Australia-only cross-section of tastemakers and crtitics. To do that, I track the adds on around 60-70 of the most credible new music playlists in the country. As with the breakout global acts above, any artist with a lower following that gets onto these lists at any sort of scale is doing extremely well indeed.

First of all, let’s take a look at the artists who punched above their weight the most domestically this week, and bagged more spots across more high-quality editorial playlists than an artist of their size would normally get.

These three landed at the top of my list with their latest releases:

  • Becca Hatch – Black Flower (single)
    • As it was in June, Becca Hatch took out the #1 spot in this list this week, with both indie and major lists all continuing their support for this excellent artist
  • C.O.F.F.I.N – 13 Days (single)
    • C.O.F.F.I.N may have gone acoustic (ish) on their latest, but they have lost neither their edge nor any playlister support, bagging space on a notably wide range of Aussie lists this week, beyond the usual limits a band this spiky tend to come up against
  • Millie Atlas – LOVE ME OUT LOUD (single)
    • A fabulous performance from this emerging artist – it’s bloody hard for an artist this size to get spots on playlists like triple J Unearthed and Fresh Finds, and doing so bumps you up my chart, in this case into a well-deserved bronze medal spot

Outside of this top three, it was another strong week of releases from emerging artists. Looking down the top 20 there are some great new acts getting the support they rightfully deserve.

Once you’re done making notes of who to check out, we’ll take a look at how the Aussies did abroad this week.

OK, so – getting backing from the new music playlists in Australia is hard enough to do, but breaking out into international markets is another level entirely.

In an impressive (and not all that common) display, all of the local top three artists landed international exposure too, so I’ll start with them – but these are the artists and releases putting Aussie artists on the radar both at home and abroad this week.

  • Becca Hatch – Black Flower (single)
    • Top of the list domestically, Hatch also snuck in a spot on Front Left which carries ~600k followers, single-handedly doubling her total listener reach this week
  • C.O.F.F.I.N – 13 Days (single)
    • Just three spots also doubled C.O.F.F.I.N’s reach this week, with All New Punk, All New Rock, and Fresh Finds Rock all signing on for the new track
  • Mack Geiger – Pouring (single)
    • Just one spot propelled Mack Geiger into this week’s list, but it was a humdinger, a berth on All New Country opening up the doors to nearly eight million listeners all on its own
  • Radio Free Alice – Crying With You (single)
    • With impeccable timing, Radio Free Alice drop a new single to refresh their near-permanent slots on major global playlists – with the album now slated for the end of October, we can expect a constant presence on the big lists for some months to come
  • Jem Cassar-Daley – tattoos used to come off in the pool (album)
    • The path to the album saw strong constant support, and now that it’s here, its tracks appeared in a broad range of Asian markets as well as a banger slot on young & free, which carries over 1m followers
  • Lucky – Take It (single)
    • One of my very favourite Australian artists of this year so far, Lucky’s new track hit the right notes for a really good range of editorial and genre lsits this week, including the >1m-follower mega-list the new alt
  • Ocean Sleeper – Peace When I’m Dead (album)
    • A terrific performance from this heavy outfit, landing on a really impressive range of Asian NMFs as well as some choice genre lists
  • REDD. – better (single)
    • It’s been a long burn for REDD., whose been quietly appearing here on multiple occasions over the last weeks – this makes it three weeks on the spin (and five weeks out of eight), which is a lot of constant support for an emerging Australian artist, made even more impressive with two million-plus follower lists this week giving up repeat space
  • blinder – low-res (EP)
    • A wild entry this week from blinder, a nu-gaze band from Adelaide who blasted their way onto a couple of hefty local playlists as well as three global ones, including the worldwide version of Fresh Finds, which carries ~1.2m followers alone

And that’s your lot this week, the artists that popped on the playlists, punched above their weight, and pushed out into global lists.

If you’re into raw data, then there are two new dashboards you can play with on the site for the Australia and the New Music Friday data.

Go and discover something new and amazing 🤘

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Photo: Becca Hatch. at Mary’s Underground, Sydney