In a tally of 1,000 unique* votes from IRC readers and visitors, the California indie rock band Local Natives beat out a bunch of other bands for ‘Break Out’ Artist of 2010 (So Far). Approximately 23% of poll participants selected Local Natives out of 10 pre-selected artists. The runner up, for Florida ‘beach rock’ sensation Surfer Blood, placed a distant second with 13.7%. The dynamic musical duo Sleigh Bells garnered 13.2%, and Canada’s Crystal Castles – another duo – and Brooklyn electro-haze pop artist, Neon Indian, pretty much tied (CC taking it by one vote) to round out the Top 5.
“Sun Hands” – Local Natives
Get a 12-song zip of Local Natives performance at Bowery Room in May 2010 via NYC Taper.
“Catholic Pagans” – Surfer Blood
“Swim” – Surfer Blood
Sleigh Bells is often categorized as a noise pop electronica duo, but their music is more intricate than that.
Derek E. Miller, a singer, guitarist and producer, met vocalist Alexis Krauss while he was waiting tables in a Brooklyn Brazilian restaurant, happened to mention he was looking for female vocalist, and poof, the duo formed, and since last fall’s CMJ in New York have been on fire.
Sleigh Bells released their debut album, Treats, in May 2010.
“Rill Rill” – Sleigh Bells
“Tell Em” – Sleigh Bells
While we completely agree with people who say that Crystal Castles do not really qualify as a ‘break out’ artist of 2010 (they released a number of lo-fi EPs between 2006 to present day.
“Celestica” – (Thurston Moore Remix) – Crystal Castles
However, it is safe to say that Crystal Castles have really broken through in the second half of 2009 and especially in 2010, making the cover of top music magazines (see NME cover to right), the praise of bloggers, and most importantly, a swell of new fans worldwide that are turning on to Crystal Castles every day.
Somewhat surprisingly, the five artists who received the lesser number of votes out of 1,001 total votes include some of most talked about bands at SXSW this past March, and CMJ last fall, most notably Free Energy and Real Estate.
We’re not sure what it means that Real Estate only garnered 4% of the total vote and placed last. Even with the consideration that some people may only consider Real Estate as a ‘break out’ band of 2009, however, the same could arguably said for Local Natives and Surfer Blood – all three bands basically hit the radars at the same time, give or take a few months.
“Dream City” – Free Energy
“Beach Comber” – Real Estate
Ever since SXSW, many of the artists included in the poll have enjoyed widespread approval, sold out shows, bill-sharing with major artists, and frequent coverage in the mainstream music press and the so-called ‘blogosphere’. We’re not asserting that these are scientific polls, but they are interesting and do provide a window through which to get a sense of which artists are creating the most buzz across the indie music landscape in 2010.
With all that considered, we’ve create a ‘part two’ of the same poll but this time featuring ten other artists, not ‘radar’ bands or ‘bands to watch’, per se. You can see and vote in this new poll located in the right column of this page.
If you feel like you have missed out on any music so far in 2010, we’ve got you covered. You can easily stream and download 2010 songs in various sections of the IRC website, including Best New Releases (a weekly review of the best releases with accompanying free and legal MP3s), Recent Releases We Almost Missed, One Man Bands, Top 10 (for all weeks of 2010), the popular In Dee Mail series, and much more.
Thanks to everyone who voted in this revealing poll; here are the complete poll results:
*Unique visitors means that duplicate voting is blocked