Listener Picks For 2017's Best New Artists (So Far)

As we tallied the results of this year's listener poll for 2017's best new artists (so far), we continue to see women dominating the list and guitars still a big part of your musical landscape. Four of the five most popular new artists are women or fronted by women and all of them are based out of New York. (In last year's poll, listeners picked all women for the entire top ten). The fuzzy rock of bands like Diet Cig, Charly Bliss and Jay Som fared the best, while Nick Hakim and Sampha were the only two male solo artists to crack the top ten. On this week's show we count down the best new artists from the first half of 2017, as selected by our listeners. We define a new artist as someone who released a debut full-length this year (if they don't have a full album, an EP or single will do). We also throw in a few of our own picks, including the out-of-time, otherworldly sound of ALA.NI, (more) guitar noise from Vagabon, and the transfixing voice of Tom Adams.