Folk Bitch Trio were notably recommended by both Phoebe Bridgers and M Ward, and despite only releasing three tracks in the last year that sort of backing can only have helped fuel the impressively fast audience growth they’ve seen recently. Last week’s track ‘God’s A Different Sword’ though captured the attention of some heavyweight playlists all on its own, a signal that there’s still a lot more we can expect from them.
Tracks released: 3 (in case you’re being super-pedantic, the number on the chart above doesn’t pick up that one of their releases was, essentially, a AA-side release.)
Playlists appeared on*: 7 – the quantity is less impressive here than the quality, and the sequencing. Spotify, ever aware of bands picking up attention, slotted them into Fresh Finds AU & NZ on multiple occasions over the last year, but the latest track spread further, bagging slots on New Music Friday AU & NZ, as well as backing from triple J’s Home & Hosed and FBi Radio. This week, they were the 3rd most added artist across the playlists I track – in other words, there’s plenty of critic and tastemaker backing out there.
Spotify followers**: Obviously, doubling your following in a year – adding over 2k followers in the process – is no mean feat for any artist at this stage of their journey. What’s super encouraging here is how sticky they are – the press coverage around them last year clearly surged interest, but interest doesn’t equal audience growth unless there’s substance behind it. Clearly, this act have what it takes to not only spark curiosity, but also to encourage clicks on the follow button.
Listen to them on Spotify, or follow them on Instagram
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* I don’t track every single playlist in the whole world because that would be bonkers. The 40 or so that I do track are specifically chosen because they focus on new music by Australian artists – this narrows down the set to a manageable size, showing who’s supporting an artist before any given track has already blown up. Basically, I think it’s a solid dataset to show which artists are getting critic support.
** I tend to use Spotify Followers as the key metric to watch, instead of Monthly Listeners or Popularity. Monthlies are great, but they can be messed up by an artist being a contributor or songwriter on another artist’s track, and (along with Popularity) can fluctuate pretty wildly. Followers implies a conscious choice of preference from a user, so for me is the strongest and steadiest signal of solid, ongoing audience support.
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