W!zard Radio's James Gilmore looks back over our first fifty Future Fresh picks and where they are now.
#002 - 'More Than This' x Henry Green
When we featured Henry Green as our second ever Future Fresh, the Bristol-born artist had seen single ‘Closer’ reach 1M streams on the Spotify and ‘Barcelona’ had reached 2M streams. Since then, the newly-released featured track ‘More Than This’ has surpassed 2.2M streams (although it was on a mere hundreds of thousands at the time) and the aforementioned tracks have surpassed 2M and 4M streams respectively.
He kicked off the year by releasing his debut album “Shift” and he’s currently on a tour around Europe, including two dates in the UK.
#007 - 'Somewhere Good' x Liv Dawson
Liv Dawson’s breakthrough moments have come late last year and this year, courtesy of a feature with artist ‘salute’ and a collaboration with Redlight and Kojo Funds. With a stellar track record of singles over 1M streams, since we featured her Liv Dawson has been touring as Khalid’s support act and has released singles ‘Painkiller’ and ‘Talk’ to critical acclaim.
Now with over 20M streams on Spotify – things are only getting brighter for Liv Dawson.
#011 - 'Silence' x Grace Carter
When we featured Grace Carter as our 11th Future Fresh, the Brighton-based artist had just released single ‘Silence’ independently. The single now has over 6M streams, she has been signed to Polydor Records and has released two follow-up singles (‘Silhouette’ and ‘Ashes’), both of which have almost 2M streams on Spotify.
Now also receiving mainstream radio support, she is due to support BRITs Critics Choice nominee Mabel on tour having recently finished a support slot with Rag’n’Bone Man.
#012 - 'Bruises' x Lewis Capaldi
‘Bruises’ was our 12th Future Fresh, and at the time was the Scottish singer-songwriters only single. Now with 4 singles and an EP (including a collaboration with JUNO Award-winning singer Jessie Reyez) down the line, and a support slot with Niall Horan, and a BBC Sound of 2018 longlist nod, the single has over 52M streams on Spotify!
Quickly selling out dates on his UK tour – which includes a show at London’s Shepherds Bush Empire – Lewis also has a string of festival dates this Summer and is establishing himself as a crucially important emerging act in the UK.
#021 - 'Television Romance' x Pale Waves
“Television Romance” (our 21st Future Fresh) was Pale Waves’ second single following “There’s A Honey”. At the time, there was a question mark as to who this The 1975-affiliated band were other than a collective making addictive indie-pop bangers.
Since the feature, the band have gone on to not just be featured as one of Vevo’s Ones To Watch, but also be listed at #5 on the prestigious BBC Sound of 2018 short list and release their debut EP “All The Things I Never Said”. Did we mention that they have over 10M streams to their name?
Since releasing ‘Golden’ (our 33rd Future Fresh), independent artist Kara Marni has kept her independence, but that’s one of the only things that has remained the same. As she kicks off her ascent up to stardom (most recently shown by her well-attended headline tour), acclaimed producer Zed Bias has remixed ‘Golden’ and she has released new single ‘Curve’.
She is also set to be supporting Rita Ora on tour later this year – 2018 is set to be her year.
We featured Ebenezer as our 35th Future Fresh in December, as single “Cliché” was starting to make waves. Now, as he’s about to tour with acclaimed act Rejjie Snow, he’s released debut album ‘Bad Romantic’ which includes features from other up-and-coming stars Col3trane and ADP.
His latest single is a collaboration with dance music megastar Duke Dumont, “Inhale”, which has grossed 2.5M streams on Spotify in less than 1 month.