BLOG SOUND OF 2013

I try not to cut and paste emails received and pass them off as my own (you'd be surprised just how many blogs do) but on this occasion I think the accompanying fact sheet serves as a better introduction than I could possible do, so here goes. My own words will follow in a separate post.

The Blog Sound Poll was first published in 2011. The concept of the poll wasn’t to criticise the established BBC Sound of list, but simply an experiment to see if UK music bloggers could come up with its own list that was more representative of their community and give the artists that were nominated some extra publicity. 

Indeed the idea was to compliment the BBC list in many ways by providing an alternative to compare and contrast.

Last year’s final long list provided some interesting alternatives to the BBC list; most notably, it included Alt-J this year’s Mercury Prize winners, who didn’t feature on the BBC list at all.

The Blog Sound of 2013 poll has expanded with 49 UK blogs nominating their 5 favourite emerging artists. 33 blogs voted for the previous poll.

Just over 170 artists have been nominated during the voting process, which indicates the diverse nature of UK Music bloggers tastes and the amount of great new music available.

The most popular act obtained a vote from around 25% of all voting bloggers, with the second obtaining a vote from 20%.

The list contains acts signed to major labels, independent labels and unsigned artists.

The list contains artists from outside of the UK, but has a strong UK bias.

The participating Blogs who voted in the Blog Sound 2013 poll are

A New Band A Day, A Pocket Full Of Seeds, All Noise, Alphabet Bands, Both Bars On, Brapscallions, Breaking More Waves, Brighton Music Blog, Details Of My Life So Far, Don’t Watch Me Dancing, Dots And Dashes, Drunken Werewolf, Eaten By Monsters, Electronic Rumors, Faded Glamour, Folly Of Youth, Flying With Anna, God Is In The TV, Harder Blogger Faster, Howl, In Love Not Limbo, Just Music That I Like, Killing Moon, Kowalskiy,  Love Music : Love Life,  Mudkiss, Music Broke My Bones, Music Fans Mic, Music Liberation, Music Like Dirt, My Bands Better Than Your Band, Not Many Experts, Peenko, Real Horrorshow, Scottish Fiction, Skeletory,  Song By Toad, Sounds Good To Me Too, Storm’s Brewing, Sweeping The Nation, The Blue Walrus, The Electricity Club, The Mad Mackerel, The Metaphorical Boat, The Music Hoarder, The Recommender, This Must Be Pop, Von Pip Musical Express, 17 Seconds

The Nominated Artists For The Blog Sound Of 2013 (in alphabetical order):

AlunaGeorge - Infectious R&B influenced pop from London

Listen: Your Drums, Your Love

Curxes - Dark industrial-pop electronic duo from Brighton and Portsmouth

Listen: Spectre


Chvrches – Scottish electro pop trio formed from a variety of other bands

Listen: The Mother We Share


Daughter – Minimal / ambient sounding folk

Listen: Medicine


Haim – Classic rock from LA with pop sensibilities

Listen: Don’t Save Me


Laura Mvula – Jazz / soul singer hailing from Birmingham

Listen: She


MØ – Hip soulful female vocal electronic pop from Denmark

Listen: Pilgrim


Palma Violets – Raw and energetic indie rock band

Listen: Best of Friends


Pins – Edgily cool and raucous all female indie band from Manchester

Listen: Shoot You


Randolph’s Leap – Glasgow based indie folk pop with a twist of brass

Listen: Hermit


Rhye – Smooth and blissful pop duo

Listen: The Fall


Savages – Intense post-punk with female vocals

Listen: Flying To Berlin


Seasfire – Modern rock band from Bristol who mix electronic beats with guitars

Listen: We Will Wake

The Neighbourhood – Atmospheric Californian 5 piece rock / pop band

Listen: Let It Go


Tom Odell – Piano based singer songwriter originally from Chichester

Listen: Another Love