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Sound Of 2014 longlist revealed

By Chris Cooke | Published on Monday 2 December 2013

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, welcome to this special festive edition of “let’s diss a list of bands”. And whereas when we last met, to moan about the Mercury Prize shortlist, we all joined in with a rendition of “those clearly weren’t the best albums of the last year”, today we’ll all be singing “they’ll never make it, they’ll never succeed”. All together now…

Of course the BBC’s once-just-a-news-article Sound Of list has a pretty good record for predicting what new artists will break in the year to come, in that while half of the longlisted acts will never be heard of again, a few of them – and usually the few that come out top once the Beeb puts these into some sort of order in the new year – probably will be the biggest new names in music in 2014.

But, of course, your favourite new artist of now is almost certainly missing. In case you wondered, yes, that was done specifically to piss you off. Meanwhile, let’s all imagine a year where at least some of the following dominate the music agenda…

Banks
Chance The Rapper
Chlöe Howl
Ella Eyre
FKA twigs
George Ezra
Jungle
Kelela
Luke Sital-Singh
MNEK
Nick Mulvey
Royal Blood
Sam Smith
Sampha
Say Lou Lou

Saying things about the Sound Of 2014 list, here’s Radio 1 music chief George Ergatoudis using words: “Unless you happen to have a handy Tardis there’s no better way to get a glimpse into the future of music than the BBC’s Sound Of 2014. The annual longlist compiled by BBC News remains the definitive survey of the UK’s key musical tastemakers and in the highly competitive world of popular music a place on the list is highly prized. This year’s list features a fascinating and diverse range of talented artists, the majority from the UK, and all are definitely worth a listen”.

The overall top five will be revealed via the Sound Of 2014 website and Nicky Grimboy’s Radio 1 breakfast show week commencing 6 Jan.