Billboard, Spotify and other music-based businesses are in an endless loop of spotlighting the same artists. While smaller artists are occasionally given the credit they deserve, it is not nearly common enough. This leads to an endless cycle of listeners hearing the same songs from the same artists, yearning for something new and more.
Here are four artists from around the world that deserve your listening time:
The Colibris
Out of Budapest emerges The Colibris, an indie band with an impressively large discography since its formation in 2021. It is criminal that they only have 1,028 listeners on Spotify.
The band embraces a melodic, almost watery sound. The songs are so heavily drenched in reverb that the notes bleed into each other, giving them a dreamlike quality. Some do this faster and more upbeat, such as "Far Away." Others like "Mirage" and "Lovers in California" are more subdued and gentler.
The Colibris have wholeheartedly embraced this unique style, even releasing a selection of slowed tracks and giving even more reverb.
Most recommended track: "Ocean Blue“
Sweet After Tears
Sweet After Tears has made a large impact on TikTok with people who might not even know who they are listening to. The band's song "Au Revoir" has over 342,000 videos using its song on the app. Additionally, "In the Bosom" has over 188,000 videos. Unfortunately, many are unaware of the group's exceptional discography, which deserves more attention.
The Indonesian group, formed in 2018, has a melodic, smooth sound, as seen in its single "Strangest Things." It continues to embrace this throughout the band's career, especially on its album of the same name, which was released shortly after.
Since its takeoff, the band has released several more singles and begun teasing new music on its TikTok account.
Most recommended track: "In the Bosom“
Nightly
Fans of artists like Harry Styles, 5 Seconds of Summer and The 1975 rejoice! Out of Nashville comes Nightly, a group that similarly and masterfully combines elements of indie, pop and rock. Since their inception in 2016, the band has pushed out two albums and several singles. The band has also opened for artists such as Kesha, The All-American Rejects and K.Flay, all before embarking on its first headline tour in 2017 and finishing the year at Bonnaroo's music festival. But it has maintained this momentum since then, creating several more pieces of music.
The group’s style is poppy and bright, as exemplified in songs like "it's not your body" despite the mature theme of jealousy and passion in relationships. Others like "Twenty Something" handle mature themes with a more appropriately melancholic instrumental, conveying the overwhelming dread and anxiety that often come with young adulthood and the accompanying desire to escape it.
Most recommended track: "Twenty Something"
Alex Mick
Despite only having five songs, Alex Mick is already well-established in the indie and bedroom pop genres. He began in 2020 with the instrumental piece "Iflo," driven by a twangy electric guitar, synths, and an accompanying lo-fi beat to carry it along. Since then, the Montreal-based artist has released four more songs, with 2023 proving his most successful year yet.
In the late summer and early fall of 2023, Mick began to gain an audience on TikTok with his new song "THE WAY SHE KNOWS." It falls into a genre he dubbed "Canadian surf rock" on his social media. Since then, the song has garnered over 80,000 streams on Spotify, cementing his name and place as a rising artist on the Canadian music scene.
He has also recently begun teasing new music on his TikTok account, which, upon further research, will likely be a song entitled "Call U Mine," though the release date has not yet been announced.
Most recommended track: "THE WAY SHE KNOWS"
