By Radio.com Staff
No new artist—and, let’s be honest, few established artists—had as good a year as Sam Smith had in 2014.
The Brit had a No. 1 album with In The Lonely Hour and a chart-topper with his bittersweet single “Stay With Me,” which everyone from Kelly Clarkson to Ed Sheeran to Chris Brown to Vin Diesel attempted to cover.
But the cherry on top of this sundae has to be that Smith ended the year with six GRAMMY nominations—tying him with Beyoncé for the most nominations this year. Clearly, he’s also found some fans in the Recording Academy.
But Smith wasn’t the only new artist who caught our attention this year. Seriously, just peruse our New Music to Know section, which celebrates those break out artists who make us excited about music all over again.
Related: GRAMMY Nominees 2015: Best New Artist Predictions
Echosmith made not being cool, cool. Vance Joy got us reminiscing about Michelle Pfeiffer. Meghan Trainor helped bring booty back. Sam Hunt made us want to turn the night on. Kiesza had us dancing in the streets. Sturgill Simpson made country weird and druggy. Naughty Boy had us la-la-la-ing all over the place. Royal Blood got us believing in rock again. Dej Loaf represented for Detroit. Maddie & Tae were more than just girls in a country song. Vince Staples changed how we think of blue suede shoes. And Tove Lo made Twinkies the ultimate breakup food.
As the year comes to a close we’d like to honor those 14 artists who we think you’ll be hearing from for many, many years to come.
Read more about our picks for the best new artists of 2014.
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1. Sam Smith
(Courtesy of Capitol Records)
“I’ve never been in a relationship before,” Sam Smith revealed to Radio.com in March. “When I was writing this album [In The Lonely Hour], I really delved into that fact. I delved into [how] I fell in love with someone who didn’t love me back, last year. I really went inside myself and I wanted to write an album for lonely people, because I don’t think there’s been enough music out there that talks about unrequited love.”
It’s an interesting choice, to release a pop album that tackles loneliness in the summer–a time generally reserved for club bangers and fun in the sun jams. But it insures that Smith will be doing what no one else is.
At the time of this interview, Smith said he was no longer in love with the person he was in love with before, but he was still in the phase of wanting to talk about unrequited love and loneliness.
“Right now when I go on stage it’s good for me. I feel like it’s a therapy every night and the music comforts me. But hopefully I’m going to find someone soon,” Smith said. “Then when I do, I think it might be a bit more difficult to sing the songs because I’ll want to sing happy songs.” -Courtney E. Smith
Sam Smith kicks off his North American tour on Jan. 9 in Atlanta, GA. Oh, and on Feb. 8 he’ll be up for six awards—tied with Beyoncé for the most nominations—at the 57th Annual GRAMMY Awards.
2. Echosmith
(Smallz & Raskind)
In the summer of 2013 Echosmith—the California band featuring Jamie, Noah, Sydney and Graham Sierota—held a spot on the Warped Tour, where they were exposed to a much different crowd than they were used to. “It’s a very eclectic tour…we wouldn’t have been a natural pick,” Jamie, the guitarist and eldest in the family, told Radio.com in January. “At first we were a little hesitant, but we said, ‘Let’s do it, but let’s see if anyone will like us.'”
People did and many of those new fans starting coming up to the band after shows to chat about their music. Most often they talked about “Cool Kids,” a dreamy song off their 2013 debut, Talking Dreams, that tells the story of a boy and girl who just want to be noticed, hinging on the lines: “I wish that I could be like the cool kids/’Cause all the cool kids, they seem to fit in.”
Jamie said the message of the song is simple: the coolest thing you can be is yourself. But more often than not, fans tell the band that they relate to the kids they’re singing about. That they feel like the outsider looking in.
“This cry to be like the cool kids… it’s something that everyone kind of goes through whether you want to act like it or not,” Jamie said. “There’s always somebody out there that you kind of wish, ‘If only I could do this, or do that.’ I think that’s why it connects with people so well.”
“What we wanted to do with our music is write songs that have messages,” Noah explained. “I guess at the core of our songs they are pop, but we wanted to embrace the pop song with real and raw music… We wanted to make something authentic.”
‘Authentic’ is a word that comes up a lot when you talk to the Sierotas. As in, they want their image and, more importantly, their sound to always be genuine.
“Musically, it’s important for us to not be someone else or try to do something because it’s popular or because it’s in right now or because people tell us to do it,” Jamie explained, echoing the message of “Cool Kids.” “We’ve never been about that. We want to do what we want to do. For us, that’s all there is.” -Shannon Carlin
Echosmith kicks off their latest tour on Feb. 10 in Ames, IA.
3. Tove Lo
(Island Records)
“Breaking up is hard to do.” That old pop cliché is at its truest after taking in Tove Lo‘s debut EP, Truth Serum.
On her six-song release, the Swedish singer—real name, Ebba Tove Elsa Nilsson—seems to be working through Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’ five stages of grief to get past one devastating break-up. Lo’s latest single, “Habits (Stay High),” might be the depression stage as she tries to get over her ex: she watches people get it on in sex clubs, picks up dads on the playground and binges on Twinkies only to eventually vomit them up in her bathtub. Who hasn’t been there?
“We don’t have Twinkies in Sweden,” Lo told Radio.com back in June—before the release of her debut LP Queen of the Clouds—of the recently resurrected cream-filled sponge cake, which she thought was just another word for cookie. “But they’re good, I’ve tasted them.” Fans have yet to start bringing them as gifts to her show, but what she’s really hoping is that Hostess will thank her with a box or two for the rest of her life. “I should be getting some Twinkies!”
But, all Twinkie talk aside, “Habits” and her song “Over,” where she chronicles the drunken night when she realized her and her boyfriend were officially done, are just two of the reasons why she’s earned herself the nickname, “the saddest girl in Sweden.” After sitting down with Tove Lo — pronounced “Too-veh Loo,” but she doesn’t mind if you say it phonetically — it’s clear that nickname is rather misleading.
“Well, I think when people meet me, they’re like, ‘Oh,’ because they expect this kind of sad, doped up, kind of girl, but I laugh a lot,” she said.” I think [the nickname is] funny, but I do get what they mean because all my dark sides kind of come through in my music…I’m not the saddest girl in Sweden, but sometimes I am, yeah.” -S.C.
Tove Lo will be on tour overseas in 2015.
4. Maddie & Tae
(Courtesy of Kevin White)
Maddie & Tae—Madison “Maddie” Marlow and Taylor “Tae” Dye—got the idea for “Girl In a Country Song,” off their self-titled EP, after listening to the radio and taking note of the words men use to describe their women. Or rather, the lack of words they use. These girls that Jason Aldean and Tyler Farr can’t seem to stop singing about are merely stock characters—”babys,” “honeys,” “pretty little things”—with no unique personalities of their own.
“Like we say in the chorus, literally all we’re good for is getting in your truck and saying absolutely nothing,” Dye told Radio.com in November. “As you can tell, Maddie and I have a lot to say, so that doesn’t really work for us.”
The young duo—both 19—grew up listening to ’90s country mainstays like George Strait and Vince Gill, who treated their ladies with respect instead of reducing them to “tan-legged Juliets” like “Redneck Romeo” Jason Aldean.
These days, Marlow says, women are constantly being objectified through song, but if a single is catchy enough most are willing to overlook it. She and Dye, however, could no longer sit back and ignore these silly cliches that they felt were actually harmful to women.
“If you really listen to it,” Marlow said of certain bro-country hits, which she elects not to name, “this poor girl has to show off her sugar-shaker and shake her moneymaker and show off those long tanned legs of hers. I’m 5’2,” Tae’s 5’3,” so there’s no long tanned legs for us.”
In the end, the duo wrote a song for all the women that don’t want to be another girl in a country song because they don’t want to be either. -S.C.
In 2015, Maddie & Tae will be working on their full-length debut, slated for a spring release.
5. Vance Joy
(Darren Ankenman)
James Keogh once had big dreams of becoming a lawyer, but right after earning his degree he decided he’d much rather be a singer/songwriter instead. While some parents would be pretty upset by their child’s decision to ditch the 9-to-5 world for the life of a rambling man, Keogh’s dad was more than happy to see his son make the switch. Mainly because he always wished he would have become a rock star himself.
“I didn’t want to play guitar when I was 14 years old, but [my dad] got an electric guitar and he was like, ‘You have to play this,'” Keogh told Radio.com in January. “He always had that regret that he didn’t play music.”
Shortly after earning his degree, Keogh hit the open mic circuit and started going by Vance Joy. He took the name, which he hoped would help separate his personal and public persona, from a character in fellow Aussie Peter Carey’s novel, Bliss. “In the actual book, the character Vance Joy, he’s kind of a grandfather figure,” Keogh explained. “He’s only in it for a couple of pages, but they talk about how he brings people around him and tells these stories and that image just sort of fit.”
Keogh considers himself to be a storyteller, admitting that though he feels a closeness to his music, it’s not autobiographical.”You might start with a thread or a kernel of your own experience, but I think the best stuff is usually picked up from books or films,” he said. “I think I try to find things and combine them and fit them together like a puzzle. The more things you can put together and kind of smooth over the edges, the more you can’t really tell where everything came from and it comes out as an original thing.”
The singer initially started writing his first single “Riptide” off his 2014 debut, Dream Your Life Away, in 2008, but back then he wasn’t that interested in songwriting. He just thought it was fun coming up with random chords and says he didn’t even think he would ever finish the song. But four years later he started working on it again. In the end, Keogh focused on his fears, which include dentists, the dark and pretty girls. But it’s often the line about a particular pretty girl who looks like a certain blonde actress best known for playing Catwoman that fans ask him about the most.
“It’s funny, people are like, ‘What’s with Michelle Pfeiffer and that reference?'” Keogh said with a laugh. “To me it’s like, of course Michelle Pfeiffer. I love her movies and when she was in the Fabulous Baker Boys she was the embodiment of the beautiful woman.” -S.C.
Vance Joy will be on tour in his homeland of Australia before heading out with Taylor Swift in May.
6. Dej Loaf
(Columbia Records)
Dej Loaf—real name Deja Trimble—grew up in the Detroit projects, but had no interest in becoming another statistic. Her father was killed when she was only four years old, so she was raised by her mom, who has always been supportive of her music. Dej’s mom even joined her onstage at her first show in New York City earlier this month. Dej is also very close to her two brothers, the eldest of which is her personal hairdresser. “He’s the only one who can do it right,” she told Radio.com in October, before noting she’d like to give other members of her family jobs in her camp in the future.
Dej says she was a shy kid who understood the difference between right and wrong. “I was kind of uptight, a loner, music was a tool,” she says. “I was the serious girl and everyone wondered, ‘Why she in the house? Why she never come out? Why she doesn’t come to the parties?’ Now they see me and they see I kind of saved myself from a lot of stuff I could have gotten into.”
The rapper behind “Try Me” just dropped the Sell Soul mixtape and is already getting ready to work on her debut album, set to be released on Columbia Records—home to Beyoncé, John Legend and now, Dej Loaf.
She also has a spot on Eminem‘s new track “Detroit Vs. Everybody,” off his two-disc compilation ShadyXV celebrating 15 years of Shady Records, which features a who’s who of the Detroit rap scene: Royce Da 5’9″, Big Sean, Danny Brown, Trick Trick.
Detroit rap is synonymous with Eminem, but Dej says the greatest part of the Motor City hip-hop scene is “all the flavors.”
“You can’t put a title on it, what we do,” she says. “What we offer in Detroit, musically, it goes beyond labels.”
Her hope is that more people will come to her hometown to see what the rap scene has to offer. “People do get killed everyday here. But, people get killed everyday other places too and we’re rebuilding. We’ll be alright,” she said. “The thing is, don’t be afraid to come here. It’s fine. You’ll live.” -S.C.
In 2015, Dej Loaf will be working on her full-length debut.
7. Meghan Trainor
(Republic Records)
Meghan Trainor is bringing booty back at a rate we haven’t seen since 2001 when Destiny’s Child insinuated the world was not ready for this jelly. So it was only fitting that when the 20-year-old got on the phone with Radio.com earlier this week she was on her way to a dance rehearsal where she planned to channel Beyoncé‘s bootylicious moves.
“Oh, I watch Beyoncé videos every day with my friend at home,” Trainor told Radio.com in July. “That’s the one performer I study a lot. I’m not saying I am her though, she’s perfection.”
The Nantucket, Mass. native who now calls Nashville home is getting ready for a daytime appearance on Live with Kelly and Michael, which is set to happen in the next few weeks. Her excitement over her TV debut has translated into her spending as much time as possible rehearsing. “They got me dancing,” she said. “I’ve never danced before. So it’s like, ‘Oh man, I’ve gotta learn to be Beyoncé for a second.'”
Trainor is in high demand since her body-acceptance anthem “All About That Bass” took the internet by storm earlier this month, thanks in large part to its pastel painted video featuring women and one man — Sione Kelepi, better known as Vine star SioneMaraschino — with all the right junk in all the right places getting their groove on. The track has since crashed onto the chart, earning the No. 54 slot on the August 2 Billboard Hot 100, an impressive 30-spot jump since it debuted at No. 84 just a week ago.
Trainor’s debut track came out of a writing session where she decided to stop thinking about what would be right for the artist and simply write something honest. “That’s your first song to say, ‘Hey, I’m a little chubby, but I love myself,’ that was a scary thing to do,” she said. “I got a lot of support from a lot of people and it’s really helping me and my confidence.”
One of those people was L.A. Reid — head of her label, Epic — who heard the song and immediately told Trainor it was hers, and only hers, to sing. The track has since become an anthem for all those who don’t feel like they fit the perfect beauty mold. “I tear up all the time when I see young girls write about it,” she said. “It’s amazing.” -S.C.
Meghan Trainor will release her full-length debut, Title, on January 13 and kick off her first headlining tour in North America on Feb. 11 in Vancouver, BC. She is also up for two awards at the 57th Annual GRAMMY Awards including Song of the Year and Record of the Year.
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