2018 has been a big year for new music and a fair few of our BPI Future Fresh selections from the past 12 months have made sure that their names have been front-and-centre of the conversation. Below are just a few of our Future Fresh selections from 2018 and what they have been up to since we featured them…
Sam Fender – We hadn’t even left January yet when we decided to feature a then little-known indie rocker called Sam Fender as our BPI Future Fresh with his then relatively unknown single “Play God”.
That song now has over 3.2M streams on Spotify alone (contributing to his over 10M total Spotify streams) as he’s signed a deal with Polydor, released his “Dead Boys” EP, played on Jools Holland and has recently been named the 2019 BRITs Critics Choice.
Mae Muller – We featured Mae Muller in March 2018 when she was, arguably, one of the most exciting unsigned artists of the moment. Well, now she’s one of the most exciting signed artists after penning a deal with Capitol UK.
Having released debut major label single “Pull Up” over the Summer, she’s just released her “Frankly” EP at the start of December which positions her for a very big 2019.
Freya Ridings – We had a feeling that “Lost Without You” might become a big hit when we featured it in July this year, but it took a feature on ITV’s Love Island for it to peak at #9 on the UK Chart and get certified Silver. After a heated contest, she signed to Capitol US at the tail-end of this year as she prepares to, essentially, become the biggest artist in the world in 2019.
In our original piece we wrote “It feels like it’s just a matter of time…” about her career prospects, it turns out it was literally just a matter of a few weeks for it all to change.
Maisie Peters – We featured Maisie Peter’s single “Birthday” as our first Future Fresh of 2018 on 9th January and hailed her as one of our new favourite emerging artists. It seems we weren’t alone; a few months later she signed to Atlantic Records UK and this past November released her debut EP “Dressed Too Nice For A Jacket”.
She’s also sold-out London’s Omeara and gained 50M streams on Spotify alone… as for “Birthday”, that now has over 7M streams on Spotify and has helped launched her into the next level of her exciting career.
Alice Chater – We were very excited about Alice Chater’s debut single “GIRLS X BOYS” when it came out this past May, and rightly so! Since then, the music video for follow-up “Hourglass” has hit 1M streams on Spotify, she’s supported Jessie J and MNEK on tour and featured in the new Little Mix video for single “Strip”.
YUNGBLUD – We featured YUNGBLUD this past Summer and we knew there was something very interesting about him. Well, the world is catching up! With his debut album “21st Century Liability” out now, he performed alongside Foo Fighters at Sziget Festival and has the likes of Halsey raving about him on Twitter.
23 Unofficial – This past April, for our 50th Future Fresh, we said that 23 Unofficial is an artist on the road to becoming a very big deal. His single “Ain’t Bothered” at the time had over 6M streams on Spotify and Complex had listed him as a “One To Watch”. Skip forward 7+ months and the single has over 12.5M streams on Spotify alone, he’s released his debut album “(The Unofficial Album”) and he’s just sold out a London show at O2 Academy Islington. He also jumped on the remix of viral hit “Jumanji” by B Young – making him involved in one of the biggest new music moments of the year.