Anyone who says music isn’t as good today as it once was just isn’t paying attention. The global scope of the digital age has made it easier than ever to find interesting artists from around the world melding genres and otherwise pushing the constraints of popular music. Unfortunately, many of the most exciting artists aren’t the pop stars you hear on FM radio, but rather the independent musicians toiling away at small venues around the nation in between intimate studio releases. Not all of them will make it big, but here are a few of the modern independent artists we think might gain some kind of mainstream attention in 2017. They certainly deserve to.
Moses Sumney
Moses Sumney knows how to use the range of his emotive voice to get a listener’s attention. Often it’s all he needs to create a melody that’s not only memorable, but also unforgettable for its emotional resonance. In concert and on his scattered single releases, Sumney creates fascinatingly evolving beats by looping his own voice ad infinitum, then delicately croons confessional lyrics on top of them. The stripped-back sound of some tracks might be labeled folk, but the crucial element that makes Sumney stand out is soul. The LA-based songwriter conveys more soul, more impassioned feeling, in a single track than most artists manage in a full album. Now we’re just waiting to see what he can do with a full album of his own.
Oddisee
This year was the first since 2011 to go without an LP release from DC-based rapper Oddisee, though he kept plenty busy touring with his tightly honed live band Good Company. Given his prolific past, we can expect another release sometime in 2017, though whether it’s a rap album like 2015’s The Good Fight, or an entirely instrumental release, remains to be seen. With or without lyrics, Oddisee crafts richly melodic tracks built upon squelchy ‘70s keyboards, soulful refrains and jazzy instrumentation equally indebted to influences like A Tribe Called Quest and The Meters. Hopefully this time around more critics and listeners will take note of his workmanship and unwavering focus on credibly fusing soul and hip-hop.
Vic Mensa
Few rappers seem quite so at home writing songs both deeply personal and overtly political as Vic Mensa. The Chicago-based rapper has already made waves as a frequent collaborator with Chance the Rapper, and together the two make a strong case for Chicago as the most exciting city for modern hip-hop. Mensa’s unique strengths lie in his musical and lyrical diversity. Just compare the confrontational beat and righteous anger of “16 Shots” to the tinkling piano riff and guilty political introspection of “Shades of Blue,” both songs from his 2016 EP There’s Alot Going On. And that’s not even mentioning the electrifying, often hilarious wordsmanship displayed on his earlier mixtape Innanetape.
Beat Connection
Named after an LCD Soundsystem song and originally formed just to DJ college house parties, Seattle’s Beat Connection have grown beyond their origins and their influences into a full band boasting strong vocal hooks and a particularly irresistible blend of indie synthpop and electronica. Their 2015 LP Product 3 was a collection of tropicalia-infused should-be hits, unified by a concept that aptly portrays modern pop music as both art and commodity. It’s just a wonder Beat Connection’s releases so far haven’t been hotter commodities.
Cherry Glazerr
LA-based rock trio Cherry Glazerr was conceived by a couple of high schoolers from the city’s affluent Westside, but their wall-of-guitars sound and entertainingly mundane lyrics (the song “Grilled Cheese” from their debut LP about exactly what you’d expect given the title) found a better home at Orange County’s garage rock label Burger Records. After enduring a flurry of local media attention that might have seen the band fade from memory like so many other promising fads, Cherry Glazerr has now added two new members and continued to hone their propulsive band dynamic with each new single. “Told You I’d Be with the Guys,” their first single since signing to Secretly Canadian, is their best yet and places the band near the forefront of an independent rock world increasingly (and deservedly) dominated by women.
Sheer Mag
The polish of arena rock and the do-it-yourself rawness of punk seemed like polar opposites in the late ‘70s, but nowadays it’s clear the two genres were just two sides of the same catchy coin. Philadelphia’s Sheer Mag is equally indebted to both, repeatedly combining snot-nosed punk attitude, radio-ready hooks and lead guitar bravado for a series of three seven-inch singles, each one a little stronger than the last. Their tight band dynamic and energetic live shows have been generating buzz since the band first started in 2014, but 2017 may yet be the year they gain the much-deserved attention of riff-starved rock fans everywhere — if they decide to put out a longer release, that is.
Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith
Though originally trained in classical piano and guitar, Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith has spent most of her musical career so far exploring the endless possibilities afforded by synthesizers and then adding loopy woodwind instrumentation on top of them, creating orchestral soundscapes for self-released albums that sound like miniature film scores that require no visuals to tell their stories. This year saw the release of Ears, her second LP under independent label Western Vinyl, as well as a new track called “Riparian” with accompanying visuals from glitch artist Pixlpa that somehow match the expressionistic textures of Smith’s latest track.
Hazel English
There’s a fantastic clarity to the guitar sound on Hazel English’s debut EP Never Going Home — a clean tone that directly contrasts with English’s reverb-soaked vocals. The effect conjures the feeling of a hazy summer day, warm and beautiful but with just a hint of uncertainty. Originally hailing from Australia but now based in Oakland, English has already achieved a fully realized, sun-soaked sound that occasionally eclipses but never completely obscures her substantive lyrics about the uncertainties of life, and particularly life as a 20-something. Hopefully a successful LP as confident as this year’s Never Going Home will help make English’s life a little more certain in the near future.
See what else made it into our Top 8 by visiting its official page.
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