Entertainment
10 New Musicians & Bands We’re Betting On In 2024
Welcome music’s newest class of superstars.
Some of 2023’s best albums came from new artists: Take Chappell Roan’s ecstatic queer celebration, The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess, or NewJeans’s K-pop crossover EP, Get Up, which turned everyone into a stan whether they wanted to or not.
This year proves to be just as fruitful with heavily anticipated debut releases from one of indie rock’s buzziest coquette-core bands, a rising EDM heavyweight, and a colossal new girl group. Below, read on for a primer on the top 10 acts we’re betting on — and get to know them while you’re still ahead of the curve.
BABYMONSTER
Who: South Korean super label YG Entertainment’s first girl group since BLACKPINK, made up of members Ruka, Pharita, Asa, Rami, Rora, and Chiquita.
What: These six teens — the youngest, Chiquita, is just 14 — had perhaps the most feverishly anticipated debut in recent K-pop memory for no reason other than YG Entertainment’s track record of delivering world-dominating girl groups. BABYMONSTER certainly wasn’t the exception when they finally made their horns-blazing entrance with “Batter Up,” a song and music video that proved these, indeed, young monsters possessed charisma and stage presence on par with veteran idols.
Where to start: “Batter Up,” released November 2023, also became the group’s first Billboard charting hit.
What’s next: A second single, titled “Stuck in the Middle,” arrives Feb. 1.
The Last Dinner Party
Who: This indie-rock band from London — made up of vocalist Abigail Morris, guitarist Lizzie Mayland, bassist Georgia Davies, keyboardist Aurora Nishevci, and multi-instrumentalist Emily Roberts — is most easily identified by the opulent, Regency-era gowns they wear on stage.
What: If a rock band existed in Bridgerton, it would probably look like The Last Dinner Party. But it’s not just their flouncy style that’s made them one of indie rock’s buzziest new bands — the music also bangs, like if someone gave Jane Austen a guitar and told her to spill her guts.
Where to start: The band’s massive 2023 single “Nothing Matters” turns red-hot lust into poetry.
What’s next: Their debut album, Prelude To Ecstasy, is out Feb. 2, 2024.
Carlita
Who: Carlita Frayman, 28, is one of EDM’s biggest rising stars and the founder of Senza Fine, a roving dance series that’s taken over NYFW and Art Basel.
What: If nostalgic and transcendent high-BPM house sets are your thing, then Carlita should be on your radar. The Turkish-Italian DJ, who began playing parties in the 2010s, has now become a major festival fixture with her transportive sets influenced by everything from Turkish psychedelic to her classical-cello roots. She’s shared co-hosting duties with Heron Preston and Diplo for her Senza Fine parties — winning co-signs if we’ve ever seen them.
Where to start:
What’s next: A debut album, that she said will “tell a story,” arrives sometime in 2024.
Baby Storme
Who: A singer and TikToker based in New York who got her first taste of virality when Lil Nas X praised her 2021 single “Jackson.”
What: Despite Baby Storme’s many strange dalliances with social-media majorness — ranging from facing discrimination at a Citibank and being kicked out of a Target for inciting a flash mob — the singer’s music is genuinely good: a heady mix of dark ‘80s synth pop and spooky theatrical flair. Her newest release “WHY? (PSA)” has such a catchy (and timely) hook she seems primed to be the next star to break out of the TikTok box.
Where to start:
What’s next: TBA, but her debut EP, Forever Halloween, dropped in October.
FCUKERS
Who: New Yorkers Shannon Wise, Ben Scarf, and Jackson Walker Lewis make up this rabidly followed (and cheekily named) NYC-based band.
What: Fcukers only has two official songs to its name, but they’ve already collaborated with LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy, toured internationally with U.K. weirdos Jockstrap, and put on several raucous, sold-out shows across NYC. Why? One listen to their head-banging and psychedelic ‘90s house hit “Mothers” will be enough to explain the hype.
Where to start:
What’s next: TBA, but follow Fcukers’s Instagram to keep up with their ever-updating roster of live shows.
Kanii
Who: The 18-year-old rapper and singer with a keen pop ear has caught the attention of PinkPantheress and millions on TikTok.
What: Google lists Kanii as a rapper, but that’s an insufficient label for the Washington, D.C. native, who moves with more of a bedroom-pop singer-songwriter sensibility. His songs often pair his clear-toned flows with softer, and more eclectic soundscapes, like on his biggest hit “I Know,” an apologetic Jersey Club-rap ballad that hit the TikTok-viral jackpot.
Where to start:
What’s next: Kanii will open for PinkPantheress on tour starting April 2024.
Freakalicious
Who: Hyperpop’s first supergroup made up of That Kid, producer Ayeshia Erotica, and Chase Icon
What: In 2018, a clique of online-savvy pop songmakers got big in the Twitter and Reddit spheres for putting out high-speed raunch-pop that felt like an evolution of PC Music and SOPHIE’s synthetic sounds. That Kid, Ayesha Erotica, and Chase Icon were three of its largest players (in addition to Slayyyter), and they’ve now come together to form Freakalicious.
Where to start: Nothing’s been released yet, but you can listen to “Verse of the Day” by Ayesha Erotica and That Kid for a taste of what’s to come.
What’s next: A debut song (and hopefully project) is “coming soon” in 2024.
Wisp
Who: Wisp is the project of a 19-year-old, Bay Area-based singer and guitarist who’s amassed a cult following around her remarkably evocative shoegaze.
What: Shoegaze is back in vogue among Gen Z, and one of the scene’s biggest newcomers is Wisp, whose first-ever song “Your Face” became a verified sensation amassing 25 million streams and thousands of fans now clamoring to know her name. This isn’t without basis: Her songs are cavernous, emotional maws, with precipitous walls of guitar, and her voice just barely legible through the waves of noise — all pluses when it comes to shoegaze. It’s about time for a genre that’s been dominated by (white) men for so long to finally welcome fresher and feminine perspectives.
Where to start:
What’s next: Wisp will be opening for indie-rock band Pachinko in April 2024.
Portraits of Tracy
Who: Portraits of Tracy is the musical outfit of Baton Rouge-based songwriter Tracy Geneviève Amare, who first got her start on YouTube remaking beats by Tyler, the Creator; Kanye West; and more.
What: Those initial dalliances with music’s biggest oddball creators were perhaps apt foreshadowing of Portraits of Tracy’s subsequent release of original music: diaristic storytelling fusing rock, pop, and undefinable eclectic energy with a bigger-picture vision that tips off her as the next generation’s Frank Ocean.
Where to start:
What’s next: TBA, but hear her latest album, Drive Home now.
Saint Harison
Who: Hailing from Southampton, England, the golden-voiced Saint Harrison already boasts co-signs from Elton John, Justin Bieber, and Timbaland.
What: If Sam Smith, Adele, and Amy Winehouse had a child it would sound like Saint Harison. The 27-year-old singer possesses one of those once-in-a-generation voices, which he wields with exacting precision on his soulful, big-feeling songs, where a 10-note run cuts like a knife to the heart.
Where to start:
What’s next: TBA, but his debut EP lost a friend is out now.
