Besides Some Boring Guitar Guys the BBC Sound of 2018 Longlist Isn’t Bad

It’s that time of year again. The BBC have released their ‘Sound of 2018’ longlist – as chosen by music writers, online personalities, radio presenters and other vague music industry titles – and it’s not shit? Considering that previous winners have resembled one long line of Debenhams ad clones (Ellie Goulding, Sam Smith, Adele, Keane), this year’s list feels like it reflects what people are actually getting excited about ATM, with a bunch of independent acts that span genres and styles.

Appearing on the list are Finnish pop star ALMA, our fave lowkey London genius Nilüfer Yanya, emotional mastermind Rex Orange County, chronicler of teen emotion Khalid, swiftly rising Manchester talent IAMDDB, Yxng Bane of XL Recordings' New Gen compilation posse, Norwegian pop singer Sigrid and that mysterious eight-piece band supposedly fronted by a 17-year-old Superorganism, all of whom we have chatted about on Noisey dot com at some point during this past year, among many others.

Last year’s list was very good too, so hopefully this means the poll is starting to mean something, rather than a bunch of middle class white people who went to one too many home county open mic nights repeatedly taking turns to pat each other on the back. That said, there are some names we just don’t know or care about, such as Lewis Capaldi, who looks like he studied anthropology at uni and still wears sand-coloured desert boots (is he actually Tom Odell in disguise?) or Sam Fender, who probably thinks that because his music videos look like outtakes from a Larry Clark film set in Surrey that he sounds less boring (he doesn’t).

Okay, snark over, here’s the full list of nominees:

Alma
Billie Eilish
IAMDDB
Jade Bird
Khalid
Lewis Capaldi
Nilüfer Yanya
Not3s
Pale Waves
Rex Orange County
Sam Fender
Sigrid
Superorganism
Tom Walker
Yaeji
Yxng Bane

You can follow Noisey on Twitter.