The roster
Artists
One page per universe. 102 and counting.
Discover
Three new artists a day, picked by ear from the roster's taste — verified real on MusicBrainz, not on the roster (yet).
Listening for new artists…
Alanis MorissetteConfessional rage turned into a 33-million-selling phenomenon on Jagged Little Pill — restless, unguarded songwriting across three decades since.Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Aphex TwinMachines taught to giggle, ambient music with teeth — electronic music's great grinning trickster.Cornwall, United Kingdom
ApleteA creative universe from Las Vegas — songs, art and ideas from multi-instrumentalist Stefano Kajatt.Las Vegas, NV
Atoms for PeaceA rhythm section built by a producer, a bass icon and a drummer — assembled to bring Thom Yorke's solo record to life on stage.Los Angeles, California, USA
AURORAA voice from the Norwegian fjords, singing for nature, warriors, and weirdos alike.Stavanger, Norway
AutoluxNoise-pop built for the long game — three albums in two decades, each one a small, exacting world.Los Angeles, California, USA
BADBADNOTGOODJazz chops, hip-hop instincts — a rhythm section that turned crate-digger taste into a live force.Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Beats AntiqueA traveling mechanical circus of Turkish banjo, marching drums, and glitching bass.Oakland, United States
Béla FleckA banjo virtuoso whose solo work spans bluegrass, jazz, classical and world music — nominated across more Grammy categories than any other musician.New York City, USA
Béla Fleck and the FlecktonesBanjo-led fusioneers folding bluegrass, jazz, funk, and the future into one band.Nashville, TN
BjörkIcelandic singer, composer and world-builder, four decades into remaking pop in her own image.Reykjavík, Iceland
Bob MarleyOne small island's rhythm, carried to every corner of the earth on a voice that never stopped believing.Nine Mile, Jamaica
Bon IverA falsetto born in a Wisconsin winter that grew into one of modern music's strangest, warmest bands.Eau Claire, Wisconsin, USA
BonoboSimon Green, the Brighton-born producer who turned downtempo electronica into a full live orchestra of sound.Brighton, England
BRAIDSSlow-building, shimmering art-pop from Montreal — loops and live drums that swell into something enormous.Montreal, Quebec, Canada
BurialRain on a night-bus window, a voice you half-remember — dance music for the hours after the dance.South London, England
CANThe Cologne band that built its own studio and invented a rhythm — the most cited influence in experimental rock.Cologne, West Germany
CaribouSongs built like proofs and sung like confessions — electronic music with a heartbeat.Dundas, Ontario, Canada
Chance the RapperChicago's independent son, who gave his music away free and won Grammys doing it.Chicago, USA
Chichi PeraltaDominican merengue reimagined — Afro-Caribbean rhythm fused with jazz and hip-hop into a sound Peralta calls his own genre.Dominican Republic
CocoRosieSisters Bianca and Sierra Casady mixing opera, hip-hop, folk and found sounds into a genre of their own making.Paris, France
ColdplayArena-scale melancholy built from a UCL dorm-room friendship — the most-attended tour in music history, still touring.London, England
Connan MockasinNew Zealand's surrealist psych-pop dreamer — woozy, pitch-bent guitar and an absurdist visual world all his own.Te Awanga, New Zealand
Curtis MayfieldChicago soul's writer-producer-guitarist — falsetto and wah-wah wrapped around lyrics of Black pride and social conscience.Chicago, IL, USA
Dave Matthews BandViolin and saxophone where a lead guitar should be — the Charlottesville jam band built for the road, not the record.Charlottesville, Virginia, USA
Dirty ProjectorsArt-rock as a moving target — intricate guitar, gymnastic vocal harmony, and a new shape every album.New York, USA
Erykah BaduA founding voice of neo-soul out of Dallas, still restless and genre-crossing three decades into her catalog.Dallas, Texas, USA
Esperanza SpaldingBassist, vocalist and composer bending jazz toward chamber music, art-rock and ritual song.Portland, USA
Explosions in the SkyWordless, cinematic post-rock built from interlocking guitars — songs that swell like weather.Austin, Texas, USA
Fela KutiTen-minute grooves as political weapons — the bandleader who made Lagos the loudest capital of courage.Lagos, Nigeria
FleaThe most kinetic bassist in rock, alone at last — trumpet first, voice second, and a covers-and-originals record made under his own name.Los Angeles, California, USA
Flogging MollyTin whistle and distortion, built on a Monday-night pub residency — Celtic punk's most enduring band.Los Angeles, California, USA
Florence + the MachineCathedral-sized art rock built on Florence Welch's hurricane of a voice.London, England
Fred again..Diary entries built from voice notes and friends' voices, played back to the biggest rooms in dance music.London, England
Gipsy KingsRumba flamenca out of the south of France — the sound of Nicolas Reyes and Tonino Baliardo, who carried a gitano family tradition into global pop.Arles, France
GorillazDamon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett's animated band — pop's longest-running cartoon experiment.London, England
Herbie HancockFrom Miles Davis's Second Great Quintet to Rockit's electro-funk breakthrough — a 14-time Grammy winner who keeps pushing jazz forward.Chicago, IL, USA
Hiatus KaiyoteFuture-soul four-piece bending jazz, funk and electronics into something wholly Melbourne.Melbourne, Australia
HozierGospel, blues and Irish folk fused into songs built for both a candlelit room and a stadium singalong.County Wicklow, Ireland
Hundred WatersFragile electronics and Nicole Miglis' hushed voice, ringing like a bell from somewhere far off.Gainesville, United States
Immortal TechniquePeruvian-born, Harlem-raised political rap, funded and released entirely outside the major-label system.Harlem, New York, USA
Imogen HeapSelf-produced electronic pop from a songwriter who builds her own instruments.London, England
Iron and WineSam Beam's whispered, bearded folk — home-recorded intimacy that grew into a full-band Americana catalog.Chapin, South Carolina, USA
Jacob CollierA one-man harmony lab, discovered on YouTube by Quincy Jones — seven Grammys deep in the art of the arrangement.London, England
James BlakeA choirboy's voice suspended in sub-bass — songs built from silence as much as sound.London, United Kingdom
Jason MrazThe easygoing hitmaker behind 'I'm Yours' — a Billboard chart record and two decades of warm, wordy pop songwriting.Oceanside, California, USA
Jeff BuckleyA four-octave ache — one finished album and a voice that keeps outliving everything around it.Memphis, Tennessee, USA
Jesca HoopA Californian folk experimentalist weaving strange, luminous songs from her adopted home in Manchester.Manchester, England
Joanna NewsomHarpist, pianist, and singer of long, luminous story-songs from the Sierra foothills.Nevada City, CA
John ColtraneA saxophonist whose dense, cascading 'sheets of sound' reshaped jazz, culminating in A Love Supreme's single-session spiritual statement.Hamlet, North Carolina, USA
John FruscianteA guitarist's guitarist chasing every other sound — folk, four-track, prog, and pure electronics — under his own name.Los Angeles, California, USA
Jonny GreenwoodGuitar in one hand, orchestra in the other — the Radiohead multi-instrumentalist who became one of film's defining composers.Oxford, England
Jurassic 5Old-school four-MC trading bars over turntablist production — a deliberate throwback built as a reaction against 90s gangsta rap's dominance.Los Angeles, California, USA
KhruangbinThai funk, dub and psych-soul instrumentals from a Houston trio who perform behind wigs, staying anonymous on purpose.Houston, Texas, USA
Led ZeppelinBlues turned to thunder — the band that wrote the blueprint for hard rock and heavy metal in four albums flat.London, England
Little DragonGothenburg electronic-soul built on a friendship that started in high school — Yukimi Nagano's voice over synths built for both club and headphones.Gothenburg, Sweden
Low RoarGlacial, aching electronic folk from Reykjavík — the sound of walking a long way home in the cold.Reykjavík, Iceland
Mariachi El BronxA hardcore band's second life in charro suits — mariachi played with total sincerity and punk stamina.Los Angeles, California, USA
Mdou MoctarTuareg guitar hero out of Agadez, Niger — desert blues wired into full-throttle rock, sung in Tamashek with lyrics of anti-colonial defiance.Agadez, Niger
MF DOOMThe man behind the metal mask — hip-hop's supervillain laureate, 1971–2020. ALL CAPS when you spell the man name.New York, USA
Michael JacksonRhythm turned into spectacle — the performer who made the whole planet watch a song.Gary, Indiana, USA
Michael KiwanukaLondon soul-folk built on self-doubt turned into confidence — a Mercury Prize winner on his third attempt.London, England
Miles DavisA trumpeter who reinvented jazz repeatedly across four decades — bebop, cool, modal and fusion, never settling on one sound.Alton, Illinois, USA
Mimicking BirdsSlow-orbit songs about deep time and small lives — home-recorded intimacy that never got loud on purpose.Portland, Oregon, USA
Modest MouseJagged, restless Pacific Northwest indie rock asking big questions in a cracked voice.Portland, United States
Moses SumneyA weightless falsetto and a refusal of category — avant-soul that makes solitude sound limitless.Los Angeles, California, USA
Nick DrakeA voice like evening light on an English garden — gone at 26, still arriving.Tanworth-in-Arden, United Kingdom
Ojos de BrujoFlamenco palmas over scratched vinyl — a Barcelona collective that wired rumba catalana into hip-hop and kept the copyright for themselves.Barcelona, Spain
Oumou SangaréThe Songbird of Wassoulou, carrying Mali's hunter-society rhythms and women's stories to the world.Bamako, Mali
Paco de LucíaThe Algeciras guitarist who modernized flamenco, adding jazz harmony and a Peruvian cajón to a centuries-old tradition.Algeciras, Spain
Perfume GeniusPiano-bench confessions that grew into towering, physical art-pop — beauty and menace in the same breath.Los Angeles, California, USA
Pink FloydAlbums built like cathedrals — enter anywhere, look up, stay a while.London, England
PortisheadSpectral Bristol soul built from crackle, spy-film strings, and a voice that aches in slow motion.Bristol, England
QueenOpera in a rock band's hands — four songwriters and a frontman the stage still misses.London, England
RadioheadFive musicians from Oxfordshire who keep reinventing what a rock band can be.Oxford, England
Rage Against the MachineRap, funk and metal fused into a weapon — Zack de la Rocha's fury over Tom Morello's turntable-mimicking guitar.Los Angeles, California, USA
RatatatGuitars harmonized like synthesizers, synthesizers strutting like guitars — instrumental rock with no singer and no gaps.Brooklyn, New York, USA
Red Hot Chili PeppersFunk-rock's longest conversation — bass, drums, guitar and a frontman locked in for four decades.Los Angeles, California, USA
Richard CheeseA Vegas-lounge alter ego for actor and radio veteran Mark Jonathan Davis — rock, rap and pop hits turned into swing standards.Las Vegas, NV, USA
SantigoldNew wave, reggae, punk and pop collapsed into one restless sound, from a Philadelphia songwriter who renamed herself mid-career.Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
Sigur RósIcelandic post-rock voyagers who turn glacial landscape into sound.Reykjavík, Iceland
St. VincentAnnie Clark's art-rock guitar project, built from a touring sideman's apprenticeship into one of the era's defining catalogs.Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA
Stevie WonderJoy as a musical instrument — played by a man who heard more in the dark than most ever see.Saginaw, Michigan, USA
SublimeLong Beach ska, punk and reggae in one sun-warped sound — a catalog that keeps growing decades after it should have stopped.Long Beach, California, USA
Sufjan StevensWhispered epics — a songwriter who orchestrates grief, faith and American myth like nobody else alive.New York, USA
SUUNSMotorik rock with the wiring exposed — krautrock pulse, post-punk nerves and a sound that never sits still.Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Tame ImpalaKevin Parker's one-man psychedelic universe from Perth, built alone in the studio and unleashed as a band onstage.Perth, Australia
Tenacious DJack Black and Kyle Gass's comedy-rock duo, chasing the 'best song in the world' since a 1994 gig at Al's Bar in LA.Los Angeles, CA, USA
The BeatlesFour Liverpudlians who turned eight years of records into the common language of pop.Liverpool, England
The BooksFound-sound collage as songwriting — cello, guitar and a library of voices nobody else thought to keep.New York, USA
The Boswell SistersThree sisters from uptown New Orleans who bent tempo, key, and radio itself to their harmonies.New Orleans, LA
The SmileThom Yorke, Jonny Greenwood, and Tom Skinner — Radiohead's restless core rewired through jazz drumming and krautrock nerve.London, England
Thievery CorporationRob Garza and Eric Hilton's downtempo world-music fusion, run out of their own Washington, D.C. lounge and label for three decades.Washington, D.C., USA
Thom YorkeA falsetto threaded through circuitry — Radiohead's voice, wandering alone into the glitch.Oxford, United Kingdom
TinariwenTuareg desert blues out of the Sahara — electric guitar wound around traditional sung poetry, a sound its own scene calls Tishoumaren.Kidal, Mali
TipperSound design as its own genre — glitch, bass and downtempo cut with surgical detail and built to move air.United Kingdom
ToolLos Angeles art-metal architects turning odd time signatures into ritual.Los Angeles, CA
Tori AmosClassically trained, confessional and unflinching — piano-driven songwriting that's stayed sharp across three decades.Newton, North Carolina, USA
TortoiseInstrumental music built like architecture — jazz, dub, minimalism and krautrock, played by a band of interchangeable virtuosos.Chicago, Illinois, USA
Trust in the SunA buttery Las Vegas fusion of jazz, soul, funk and pop.Las Vegas, NV
tUnE-yArDsLoop pedals, ukulele and a voice that builds whole songs from scratch, live — art-pop with the wiring showing.Oakland, California, USA
Wye OakTwo people, a wall of sound — smoky indie rock that keeps shedding its skin.Baltimore, Maryland, USA
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