Hello everyone, it’s Monday and not only is it the rough day of the week, but it’s the rough part of the semester as well. We are a little more than halfway there but it is definitely rough. We all just want it to be summer and not studying for all these damn exams and all the endless homework, but we can’t give up now. So to help everyone get through the rest of the semester, here are some new/underrated artist to listen to study to, do homework to, or pretty much anything.
Julia Michaels
She is an upcoming artist from Iowa. You might have recognized her from the hits: “Issues”, “There’s No Way” with Lauv, “What A Time” ft. Niall Horan, etc. She is still fairly new, so tickets to see her in Cleveland on May 10 for $20. Her other good songs is “Anxiety” ft. Selena Gomez, and “Deep”. She is a great pop artist with relatable lyrics (um hello “Anxiety” lyric: “My friends, they wanna take me to the movies I tell ’em to fuck off, I’m holding hands with my depression”).
Hobo Johnson
He is the vocalist for Hobo Johnson and the LoveMakers. His style is alternative hip hop/spoken word. Almost every one of my friends that have listened to him has said he style is unique for sure. Some were confused since he doesn’t really sing on the beat but it still somehow works. His first album is the “Rise of Hobo Johnson” (2017). Which I personally like almost all of the songs but my favorites include, “Sex in the City”, “The Ending”, “Father”, “3%”. But he’s definitely a singer to give a listen to.
Olivia O’Brien
Olivia O’Brien got some attention from the public when she collaborated with Gnash’s hit, “I Hate You, I Love You”. That song got her a record deal with Island Records. Her first album was, It’s Not That Deep” (2017). There is only five songs on the record and I really like them all. I started listening to her with her song, “Empty”. But all of the pop songs are good and since her album, she released some good singles like “I Don’t Exist”, “Care Less More” “UDK”, and more.
Liza Anne
Liza Anne is an American folk artist. I started listening to her when her single, “Paranoia”, was released on amazon prime music new releases and honestly, it is still one of my favorite songs from her. From there, I downloaded her album, “Two” and this is another album where I literally love all the songs from. It’s definitely a relaxing album that can be used to study to or a car ride to.
Judah and the Lion
Judah and the Lion are an Alternative band from Nashville, Tennessee (surprise, surprise, lot’s of good musicians come from here such as Paramore, Lady Antebellum, Kesha, etc. Guess there is something in the water down there). You might have heard of the band over the previous summer with their hit, “Take it all Back”. There hit came from the album “Folk Hop N’ Roll” (2016). The whole album is good but my favorites are, “Take it all Back”, “Better Man”, “All I Want is You”, and “Reputation”.
Yungblud
Yungblud is an English Alternative/Indie Rock artist from Doncaster. He is definitely an up and coming new artist who you will most likely hear in the future. His style is unique and I would expect a lot of future collaborations with well-known artists. His new collaboration is with artist Halsey and Travis Barker in his new single, “11 Minutes”. Halsey is also his girlfriend (sorry G-Eazy, she moved on with a man who’s nine years younger, it happens). His album released before his new collab single was, “21st Century Liability” (2018). You already know what I’m going to say at this point, it’s a great album. My favorites are “Medication”, “Kill Somebody”, as well as his other single “Loner”. Some YouTube comments compare him to a new version of green day, fall out boy, etc. But personally, I think he is hard to compare to people. He has this unique voice, style, and personality. Definitely an artist to watch out for.
Rosalía
Rosalia is a Spanish singer-songwriter known for her alternative R&B, art pop, and new flamenco style of music. She is not too prominent in the United States but is well know in Latin countries. She has been nominated for several of her songs such as Record of the Year, Song of the Year, and more under the Latin Grammy Awards. She does have few awards under her belt such as Best alternative song and Best Urban Fusion/Performance under the Latin Grammy Awards, and Best Pop video-international under the UK Music Video Awards. Now, I do not know any Spanish besides the numbers 1-10 so, this makes great homework and study music since I have no idea what she is saying yet the songs still sound amazing. The beat and her voice in her songs is out of this world. Plus, you can just her emotions in each songs. Her hit album is “El Mal Querer” (2018). My favorite tracks are of course the fan-favorite “malamente (cap.1: augurio)”, “Pienso en tu mirá (cap.3: celos)”, and “Bagdad (cap.7: liturgia)”. But of course her whole album is phenomenal. She does have an upcoming tour in North America: stopping by California (Los Angeles+San Francisco), New York (New York), and Ontario (Toronto). Now I’m just waiting for a collab between Rosalía and Camila Cabello because that song would be freaking amazinggggg. I’ll just patiently wait for it to happen for now I guess.
Kuwada
Kuwada is a newer pop artist to hit the scene. In fact, he only seems to have three singles out: “Cherry Cola” (2017), “Ocean” (2018), “Starlight” (2018). My personal favorite is “Cherry Cola” and I had YouTube on autoplay and this song came on. It is a nice chill pop song to listen to do anything to pretty much. I am interested to see what other singles the band comes out with and hopefully, a future album is in the making.
Jake Bugg
Now this artist is not new on the scene. Jake Bugg is an English Musician with focus on Indie rock/folk, blues, blues-rock, and somehow country rock genre. He has a few albums out, but his most popular one is his self-titled album, “Jake Bugg” (2012). The album reached number one on the UK Albums chart and got some companies wanting to feature snippets of his song. You might have heard his hit single, “Lightning Bolt”, featured in a Gatorade and Michelob Ultra commercial. I first heard of Jake Bugg if I remember correctly for him being featured on Apple’s featured albums/artists (plus the album was free) years ago, and I still listen to the album today of course. My favorite songs from the album are, “Lightning Bolt”, “Simple As This”, and more which I released I love his whole album while picking out my favorite songs, oops. So give it a listen too! “Lightning Bolt” is a great song to listen to when you need a pick me up, a nice workout song, and simply waking up in the morning.
Billie Eilish
Now maybe you have been living under a rock, which I don’t blame you since school is stressful and scary and I want to hide there too, but Billie is becoming pretty popular. Her first album, “Don’t Smile at Me” (2017) was where she got noticed. Besides that, she collaborated with Khalid in the song, “Lovely” for the Tv Show “13 Reasons Why”. Her new album to be released at the end of the month, “When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?” is sure to be a success. She also released the single “Come Out and Play” that was featured in an Apple Commercial. My favorite songs from her are, “When the Party’s Over”, “Ocean Eyes”, “Copycat”, Wish You Were Gay”, and pretty much almost all of her songs. She has a unique style with her songs, very different music video style, and she is literally just 16 years old with so much talent, it’s unbelievable. She is someone who will continue to be in
Hope you found the great new artist you have been looking for!