Let’s be honest: 2020 was a dud.
Despite some great albums, creative projects, and wholesome initiatives, we’re all well overdue for new music and live events.
So, alongside the return of normality, we can expect 2021 to usher in the return of the superstars. We can also expect 2020’s stars to keep the ball rolling, while some of our favourite under-the-radar artists break out of the lockdown, leaving their mark on the first stint of the post-Covid era.
Adele
She’s an international sweetheart, a once-in-a-generation artist, and she’s back in 2021 with her highly anticipated – and yet to be confirmed – fourth studio album. We don’t know the release date but what we already know is that it’ll be the best-selling album of the decade so far. In October, Adele shocked SNL viewers with her new look: perhaps she will do it again with a new sound for a new era in 2021.
Celeste
It feels like she’s been around forever, but Celeste made 2020 her own and shows no sign of slowing down. A diamond in the rough last year, expect Celeste to become a household name by the end of 2021. She stole the show on Jools Holland’s New Year Eve Annual Hootenanny performing with Tom Jones, but it was her performance of her single Love is Back (taken from her debut LP, due 26th February) that was perhaps the precursor for the coming year.
Chloe x Halle
Once described as too complex for the average ear, and barely out of their teens, Beyoncé-backed sisters Chloe and Halle Bailey have only been trending upwards since the release of their 2020 album, ‘Ungodly Hour’. Amassing countless accolades (and a Grammy nomination for Best Progressive R&B Album) it’s hard to imagine 2021 is going to slam on the brakes for their meteoric rise. Take a listen to their single ‘Forgive Me’, which will inevitably be on every party playlist for the years to come – when parties are safe again, of course.
Cj Pandit
For fans of Bon Iver and The 1975, Pandit is going to soundtrack a lot of hipster tears in 2021. Not just your traditional artist, Cj Pandit gained traction for enriching their musical releases with an art exhibition and short films. Give ‘Digital Love’ a listen: the creativity is infectious, and the video nostalgic. We must warn you that there will be tears.
Japanese Breakfast
The Korean sensation’s sound is perhaps most accurately described as Lo-fi. Beautifully melodic and breathtakingly harmonic, Michelle Zauner’s Japanese Breakfast is exactly what the nation needs as we enter Lockdown III in the UK. 2021 promises to be a massive year for Zauner as she is scheduled to release her memoirs in April which address the loss of her mother, the grief process through the creative work. Look no further than her KEXP performance for a reminder of why we love her so much.
Lynx
Still very much under-the-radar and earmarked by the NME, Elliot Brett – aka Lynx – embodies philosophical perspectives of the 2020s with his “gay industrial pop”. Somewhere between Slipknot, Lady Gaga, and Faithless, Lynx’s harsh electronica, lavish costumes, and celebration of everything Queer is exactly what 2021 ordered. A modern-day rockstar-in-wait, making dance music, sticking their finger up to proscribed masculinity, and dancing on its grave (and hopefully stages near you later in 2021).