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Essential Artists

Essential Artists #18: From Miley Cyrus to GRUB

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:

  • OAKK – SIRENS (single)
  • Master Peace – act like you know ? (feat. Muni Long) (EP)
  • Fat Dog – Call It What You Want (single)
  • Logic1000 – The Only One (feat Christine and the Queens) (single)
  • Carlita – One More Dance (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 global 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:

  • OAKK – SIRENS (single)
    • With just 14k Spotify followers, to appear on 17 NMFs around the world (the #12 most added this week) is a remarkable achievement
  • Master Peace – act like you know ? (feat. Muni Long) (EP)
    • Master Peace’s enormous cred propelled him into the top 20 most-added artists across global NMFs this week
  • Fat Dog – Call It What You Want (single)
    • South London electro-punk crew make it into the #21 spot this week, their second appearance near the top of the list with as many releases, a big signal of support across the world
  • Logic1000 – The Only One (feat Christine and the Queens) (single)
    • This Aussie ex-pat now based in Berlin last appeared on this list back in July, showing no signs of diminishing support
  • Carlita – One More Dance (single)
    • A compact but powerful list of markets backed this latest track, with spots in North America, Europe, and Asia, as well as an important global spot as well

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:

  • GRUB – Stability Please (single)
    • With just their second release, GRUB build on the excitement of the first with a terrific haul of playlist support, a notably wide range of major slots for such an early-stage project
  • Armlock – Half Time (single)
    • Armlock continue to pick up support and supporters, and even as they approach the 10k follower level, this was a particularly broad range of support across the board
  • 3% – Not Many – Ganay Biralunbar (single)
    • Always a home-turf favourite, the 3% crew brought a top-shelf banger with them this week, guaranteeing them spots across major and indie lists, and across genre lines

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.

Two of the top three domestic artists fared well abroad 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.

  • GRUB – Stability Please (single)
    • As well as topping the list at home, GRUB picked up two hefty international spots too, on All New Punk and Fresh Finds Rock, a significant show of global backing for this relatively new project
  • Armlock – Half Time (single)
    • #2 domestically, Armlock also picked up over 2.3m combined follower total from international playlists this week
  • Radio Free Alice – Crying With You (single)
    • This makes it seven weeks in a row that RFA have held significant playlist real estate on major playlists around the world, making them a clear favourite to end up as the breakout new Australian band of the year on the international stage
  • Maple’s Pet Dinosaur – Child’s Play (single)
    • The boundless teenage energy of Maple’s Pet Dinosaur has propelled them all over the internet, and with their latest release ‘Child’s Play’ (also their first major label release through Warners), they’re now seeing hefty backing from some large international playlists to boot
  • Sammi Heaney – Guilty (single)
    • After a gigantic burst of popularity on the socials, the streaming release picked up hefty backing in week two, with both the global version of Fresh Finds and teen beats (both carrying over 1m followers) giving up space for this debut upload
  • Swapmeet – Mount Zero (album)
    • After a brief absence from this list, Swapmeet reappear once more on global lists, one of this year’s breakout Australian bands continuing to keep a presence on lists around the world
  • Lucky – Take It (single)
    • Chance has nothing to do with Lucky’s bubbling-under success on international playlists, with her excellent single gaiing spots two weeks on the spin on large-scale plsylists like the new alt, as well as from influential names like the NME
  • Noah Hill – Ok ok now (album)
    • As Parcels’ bassist, there’s plenty of history and credibility for Noah Hill to fall back on, but you don’t get this strong a list of playlist support – both inside and outside of Australia – by just knowing a few people
  • C.O.F.F.I.N – 13 Days (single)
    • The noisy bark of C.O.F.F.I.N was (very slightly) tempered on their latest single, but their bite is still sharp, snapping up aoround 1.5m combined follower total on the global playlists they kept spots on this week

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