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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 of emerging artists 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 five favourite emerging artists. Just over 170 acts received at least one vote. The winning act received votes from around 25% of all bloggers.
The long list represents the very best of new music and draws from major label, indie label, and completely unsigned acts. The likes of Haim may be featuring on a lot of new music tip lists at the moment, but the Blog Sound poll also highlights lesser known bands such as Curxes and Randolph’s Leap, bands that do not have big PR representation, and this is what makes the Blog Sound list fascinating and exciting.
The poll was organised by Robin Seamer (Breaking More Waves) and Andy Von Pip (The Von Pip Express). “Each blog was allowed to vote for five acts and the diversity of the nominations was staggering. Based on the evidence of the spread of votes anyone that says that music bloggers are sheep and are all writing about the same artists has it wrong. However, the results of the poll show that certain artists do have a lot of support and love from a significant portion of UK bloggers and those artists make up the Blog Sound of 2013 list,” says Robin.
The Nominated Artists For The Blog Sound Of 2013
Aluna George – Infectious R&B influenced pop from London
Curxes – Dark industrial-pop electronic duo from Brighton and Portsmouth
Chvrches – Scottish electro pop trio formed from a variety of other bands
Daughter – Minimal / ambient sounding folk
Haim – Classic rock from LA with pop sensibilities
Laura Mvula – Jazz / soul singer hailing from Birmingham
MØ – Hip soulful female vocal electronic pop from Denmark
Palma Violets – Raw and energetic indie rock band
PINS – Edgily cool and raucous all female indie band from Manchester
Randolph’s Leap – Glasgow based indie folk pop with a twist of brass
Rhye – Smooth and blissful pop duo
Savages – Intense post-punk with female vocals
Seasfire – Modern rock band from Bristol who mix electronic beats with guitars
The Neighbourhood – Atmospheric Californian 5 piece rock / pop band
Tom Odell – Piano based singer songwriter originally from Chichester
Happily, there are three out of our five choices in the list, plus a couple we really aren’t keen on at all and a couple who are new to us! That as they say is democracy ! The picture it paints is clearly not of a UK music blog scene being blindly led by the industry, but one that contains many blogs that have their own unique voices and like what they like, erm , because they like it ! It will certainly be interesting to see how this list compares to the BBC’s “Sound Of” list!
The 49 blogs who voted in the 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
I just can’t see the relevance of a Blog Sound OF 2013, a supposed antidote to the BBC list, when this one is about as shit as the Beeb’s. If anyone out there would care to start an Alternative Blog Sounds of 2013 list with me, please get in touch. This list is just full of bland bands that have mostly got on the list because they have money behind them, which makes me wonder about the credibility of the people that designed the list
richgilb1969 at hotmail.com
Well it’s all subjective in terms of which bands you like. There are quite a few here I’m not into myself but where does it say this is an antidote to the BBC list ? As for the money argument, thats just silly, why would bloggers vote for bands who had “money behind them?” PINS for example who I voted for haven’t exactly got huge swathes of cash behind them. Why not list a couple of bands you’re into Rich ? And maybe define “credibility?” , nobody ” designed the list” We simply invited bloggers to vote, this was the result.
Interesting list!
And very strange comments rich, how can you complain when it’s a vote?!