Not to toot our own horn, but our last two series of Artists To Watch have panned out pretty well. Looking back on our lists from 2015 and 2016, a majority of the artists that we forecasted to have excellent following years did just that.
In 2015, we predicted that Rezz, Eprom, Lost Kings, Graves, KRANE, Ekali, Mesto, Quix and more would have a stellar 2016, and they’ve all gone on to have an even more stellar 2017. Also in 2015, we included more established artists who we thought would just have a strong 2016.
In 2016’s list, we narrowed down our list to true up-and-comers and it’s been inspiring to see the likes of K?d, Goshfather, Um.., Ducky, Subtact, Crankdat, No Mana, Hotel Garuda, Petit Biscuit (who actually ended up snagging our #1 album of 2017), DROELOE and more make 2017 their bitch.
This year’s list was admittedly a little harder to narrow down – it seemed that EDM was starting to plateau, or perhaps there weren’t enough people or organizations taking up a tastemaker status this year, and so it was harder for laymen to find artists that were truly inspiring. That didn’t stop us from getting 40 names, though.
Once again, we’ve avoided any repeats of names from past years, so before acting up in arms that we’re missing someone check out our 2015 and 2016 lists first. If you still think we missed someone, let us know!
Whipped Cream | Far Out | UNKWN | RIOT | Swage | Yaeji | Hidden Spheres | Umfang
Volvox | Convex | Luude | kLL sMTH | DNMO | Prismo | Limitless | HVDES | EDEN
heroless | BLU J | Thutmose | Helena Hauff | Kittens | Devault | Big Wild | Sullivan King
Brohug | Moksi | Two Friends | Dion Timmer | Xan Griffin | Knodis | Medasin | Taska Black
Emmit Fenn | GG Magree | Bonnie x Clyde | Midnight Kids | Rootkit | Angemi | Grant
Photo via Rukes.com