JULY NEW ARTIST FORECASTER

Yeah! I hope you're as excited for July's New Artist Forecaster as I am! After watching Long Strange Trip, the six hour Grateful Dead documentary on Amazon, I've found myself stuck in Spotify playlists like "Best Morning Dew plays '72 - '84" or "Only Dark Star jams." So I too am quite grateful to have all this fresh new music from artists I'd never heard of, not once never no way no how. Let's hope you hadn't either, otherwise maybe you'll have my job this time next month.

WE ARE: THE GUARD - NEW ARTIST FORECASTER | JULY

I've learned a couple of things from listening to all forty of these tracks that I would like very much to share with you. First and foremost, there is a lot of good music out there being made by people in relative anonymity. Tens of thousands of artists with a Soundcloud pages filled with quality music, great songwriting, lush production, and the voices of angels. It's entirely possible that there's more good music out there than you can even listen to in a lifetime. Now why these people aren't famous yet is beyond me. They are all incredibly talented and deserve to make those big bucks. I want to talk specifically for a moment about the overabundance of extremely talented female vocalists with sultry voices and haunted pasts that sound absolutely stunning on some of these tracks. Siobhan Sainte, LUNAR and Marna are prime examples. Amazing voices that just need the right feature on the right massive hit to catapult them into being the next Ellie Goulding or whoever is actually popular.

Secondly, if anyone ever tells you that R&B is dead you can link them right to this playlist and be like, "nah, it just went into the future sub-genre of dance music." What even is Future? Is that like when Alternative blew up in the 90's? Just a generic sounding catch-all to describe an overall change in sound? Son-J, SG Lewis, Blondage, Jaira Burns, Jo&Me and EZI all making some badass R&B tunes. SG Lewis is channeling Andre3000 (in the best ways possible) and Blondage has got those sexy EDM R&B Bass vibes as if the popularity of Mo and Major Lazer's "Lean On" were finally coming to fruition. There are some damn fine funky sexy vibes in all of these tunes and I can't that we're truly living in the golden age of R&B and no one is even talking about it. 

Okay let's stop for a second and talk about the most important thing in the world: HITS. There are huge, anthemic, take over the world hits on this playlist. Songs that we'll be hearing just as often as that last Killers track or that really famous Bruce Springsteen one. You know the one I'm talking about. The kinds of songs that start on KCRW and then morph their way onto every radio station ever. LOYAL's "Reset in Colour" and Anna of the North with "Someone"-- expect to hear these songs more often than you want to. Cleanse yourself of the sound now, so you can appropriately love or hate when you don't have a choice of whether you get to hear it or not anymore. 

And don't you dare forget that weirdo pop is REAL people. It's out there, just like Aliens. Allie X making some strangeness with her track "Vintage." Danny Sunshine taking that PC Music freak energy to the next level with "Never Thought." Mad Decent releasing Poppy's "Let's Make a Video" which is prototypical 2000's euro dance at it's finest, which was only 10% ironic in 2002 but has to be at least 70% so in 2017. Right?  I don't know. Weird, strange, wonderful, that's all I do know.

A few other shining moments I just need to bring up, because I'd be remiss to not share my fantastic thoughts with you. 6LACK is all the best parts of Drake. Before we knew he was soft, just when we were assuming it. Apparently you can build a beat out of a guy counting. This is something I learned through "Heaven I Know" by Gordi, my favorite song on the playlist. BC Unidos and Shugudzo have a Blondie and Caribbean influenced "remake" of Queen's classic, "Bicycle." And Sometime Sonny has the kind of voice that will make the whole world pay attention, like Bright Eyes in 2001. Just wait, It'll happen.

I hope you enjoyed these new artists finds as much I have. Definitely make sure to check out those Grateful Dead playlists too. I promise you won't be disappointed. Or maybe you will. Stick to our playlist, why don't you?

From deep within the murky depths of the Los Angeles River emerged a creature: 50% raver, 50% comedian, 10% Robotcop. Kurt Kroeber doesn’t own a dog, operates Soundbleed (the world’s only dance party comedy talk show rave), and is down to party with you. Come up some time and say “Hey dude!” But definitely make sure to casually drop the secret Illuminati password.