Artists to Watch 2017

At the end of every year, every music blog and website tries their hand at predicting the future: choosing the artists they think will make a big impression in the coming year. When I first started paying attention to these lists, they were one of my favorite parts of the year. It allowed for exposure to brand new artists who I would quickly fall in love with and follow wholeheartedly. However, as I started spending more and more time actively seeking out new artists and their music, the artists to watch lists got to a point where they just made me sad seeing my rising favorites get excluded. I decided that I wanted to have my own list so that I felt everyone deserving recognition got a shot. Last year I made my list and even had a good portion of the write ups done before I decided against starting a blog. Because of all that, it only seems fitting that the first series I post is my artists to watch for 2017.

Over the next several weeks, I will be counting down my 20 favorite new artists to look out for in 2017. Some of them are very close to releasing albums, while some may just be getting started, but across the board these are the people I’m the most excited about.  After an incredible year for debut albums, I am confident we’ll see a repeat of that in 2017. These are the artists I will be championing in the coming year and hopefully you’ll agree and join me in supporting them as they continue to develop and grow.

A few notes about how I formed the list. Although some artists that have released albums haven’t fully “made it” yet, I am limiting my picks to those that have yet to release a full length LP. In the same vein, I’m attempting to avoid artists that the general public would already be familiar with through hit songs or collaborations with other high profile musicians. On the other hand, although some lists try to predict artists with only a few songs released, you’ll see I’m tending towards slightly more established artists that I feel are worth fully getting behind. After starting with a longlist of over 100 artists, these are the names in music that I find the most exciting and I hope you do too!

Introducing Symbiosis Music’s first class of Artists to Watch!

Until the count down starts on Monday, have a listen to one of the artists at the top of my ones to watch for 2016 who went on to release my favorite song, album, and music video of the year. Click below to listen! I hope this will give you a taste of what’s on the way in the coming weeks!

Shura – What’s It Gonna Be?

Introducing Symbiosis Music Blog

At this point every year the idea of starting a blog rears its ugly head during the excitement of analyzing the previous year and looking forward to the one ahead. Last year I made it as far as planning out my first several posts and actually writing half of the first series before I gave up after deciding no one would care to hear about what music I’m listening to. This year, however, I am more excited than ever to start this adventure whether or not anyone is along for the ride.

Throughout my childhood and beyond, music has been one of the single most important and defining aspects of my life, and although it no longer has a formal role in my day to day, it’s still an integral part of who I am. Hence it feels more timely than ever to finally start a blog. Symbiosis describes a mutually beneficial relationship between two things and therefore seems a perfect name for a blog written by someone who can’t imagine life without music. It also has that nice nerdy bent perfect for someone in graduate school for biochemistry.

My goal for this blog is for it simply to be an outlet for me to share music I listen to. A few unlucky friends usually get the brunt of my childlike excitement, but I’m hoping there are maybe a few more people out there who may be interested in the music I enjoy so much. Because this is obviously a side project to the other things going on in my life, I won’t be able to talk about all the music I’d like to, but I am going to try to follow some artists I’m excited about. Expect posts about new songs, albums, and artists I can’t get enough of. Hopefully someone enjoys something I write about as much as I enjoy sharing the music I love. Welcome to Symbiosis Music!