Musicians Who Will Blow Your Mind in 2021

I’m a commercial songwriter which means that I write songs to pay my bills. In 2019 that meant heading from my native Northern Ireland to Norway, Nashville, Spain and several parts of England. In 2020 it involved learning to live stream studio files from Zoom. One good thing that I discovered whilst I was acquiring screen fatigue is that there is a lot of good music out there. A lot. Some of it is under the radar so I wanted to bring to your attention some music that is brilliantly crafted, produced and performed. We may not be jetting off, but we can travel in our minds…

Govardo: Simon and Garfunkel Meet Over the Rhine Meets Morcheeba

Govardo is a collaboration between producers, guitarists and vocalists Dom Sky and Jack Rose. For several years they ‘followed the sun’ (leading to a great tagline) in the UK and Europe, busking in some idyllic places and growing a solid following by doing so. Dom’s voice tends to stop people in the street (I experienced that at a food festival in Oxford) and will definitely distract you from your spreadsheets if you are working from home.

The beauty of Govardo’s neo-folk sound is the vocals, and there are a lot of them. I tried to count the number of harmony parts on their song Leaving Home, the opening track to their 2020 album Angel Folk but gave up. The effect is like a folk symphony. The lead vocals by Dom Sky are a pure joy. Production wise, they take very old musical forms and bring them into the Logic age. The song Oceans is a case in point.

On their Spotify you will hear their original work as well as well constructed covers of songs like Vincent and Unchained Melody.

Riley Holland: Pop Meets Singer-Songwriter, A Bit Like Billie Eilish Meets Tori Amos Only Not as Depressing

One of the best songs I heard in 2021 was the pop belter/sad love song Some-One Else’s Clothes by Riley Holland. It will leave you in your home office singing the words ‘on the way to the bathroom, on the way to the bathroom nah nah nah’ into your stapler. That’s not to make light of Holland’s lyrical genius: ‘tripping on someone else’s clothes on the way to the bathroom’ is a great line that tells a story with images we can instantly grasp and feel. It’s also conveyed very well in Holland’s distinct, quirky voice. Her voice and blend of singer-songwriter lyricism with hook-based pop makes her one to watch this year both as an artist and a songwriter.

Amanda Agnew: From Northern Irish Local Scene Mainstay to International Recording Artist

Like Riley Holland, Amanda Agnew hails from Northern Ireland where she has been a mainstay of the live music scene for a long time also performing at Nashville’s legendary Bluebird Café and for London’s Urbankelt. Her fanbase connect with her earthy vocals and ethereal arrangements of slightly country infused, singer-songwriter songs with soul. Recently she made the jump to international recording artist, creating a collection of tracks in Nashville yet to be released including this beautiful tune, The Moon and Me. If you miss live music, it’s worth spending some time in front of her YouTube channel.

Katie Sky: Twenty-One Million Streams Can’t Be Wrong

2020 pressed the pause button for a lot of artists. Not so for Katie Sky. She made her Radio 1 debut in the middle of the toughest year for music we have ever lived through. She has also garnered over 300k listeners a month on Spotify and charted in the Far East. Her track Monsters has over 21 million streams but personally I prefer I Wanna Believe. It showcases her very natural vocal sung in her own Bristol accent (she's more Urban Bristol than West Country) with very contemporary pop production. Katie’s music is for people who listen to right up to date commercial music and unashamedly so.

What are you listening to?

Feel free to check out any of my social media and let me know what you’re listening to at the moment. Also, if you have tracks you’d like me to hear, that would be awesome. This is where to get me.

Eve Williams is a singer, songwriter and music educator. She has worked with platinum selling artists through to the new and terrified and just loves to talk about music with anyone who will listen. Hear her here.