10. Chappell Roan

For fans of Taylor Swift, Olivia Rodrigo and fletcher, comes new breakout talent Chappell Roan (she opened for the two latter artists this year). The stunning viral hit ‘Casual’ went viral on TikTok – but don’t discredit it for a viral moment – there’s real depth and punch to her songwriting that packs an emotional hit.

Listen to: Casual

9. Hemlocke Springs

There’s something unique and special about Hemlocke Springs that makes her one of the most likeable voices to have emerged of late. With only two tracks to be released so far, we have high hopes, 2023 will be full of legions more music from the singer. The music is glorious, 80s styled pop music at its best – and it is delightfully charming.

Listen to: Girlfriend

8. Raffaella

We’re not ashamed to admit our love already for Raffaella – it’s joyful, effervescent pop music that will have you reaching for your Scooby Doos, Tamagotchis and jelly shoes to fully experience this nostalgic infused pop explosion.

Listen to: Blonde

7. Jackson Dean

When Jackson Dean released Greenbroke, there were glimmers of magic littered throughout the project – those songs have staying power. The magic has not gone unnoticed, with opening spots for the likes of Miranda Lambert amongst others.

Listen to: Don’t Take Much

6. Kim Petras

Think you’ve heard of Kim Petras? She’s the one featured on one of the most widely distributed tracks of the moment – her collaboration with Sam Smith – making her the first openly transgender artist with a No. 1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100. She’s finally getting the attention she deserves and hopefully this is just the start of a growing acclaim for her name.

5. Samia

Samia offers pure poetry in her plaintive, emotional tracks that will have you wanting to wallow in your emotions for weeks to come. With an album to come in 2023 – honey – she seems poised to dominate legions of fans, who will pore over her lyrics throughout the duration of the year to come.

Listen to: Kill Her Freak Out

3. Caity Baser

There’s something about Caity Baser’s no nonsense candour that is reminiscent of a young Lily Allen – with her slew of references, she’s hard to resist and we give up trying in 2023.

2. Ashley Cooke

Currently holding the No. 1 spot on the iTunes chart, Ashley Cooke has had a year. Now, with the force of her fans behind her, this seems to just be the start for this delightfully charming Nashville star.

1.Flo

Given their win at the BRITs for the Rising Star Award, Flo are a widely publicised secret – but this seems to just scratch the surface of what this three-piece duo are capable of, with 2023 set to shine bright for this dynamic trio.

Listen to: Immature

The post 10 Artists on our Radar to Watch in 2023 appeared first on off the record.

Hi Jackson, how are you doing today?

Not too bad!

It’s been three months since the release of Greenbroke, how have you found navigating its release and sharing this project with the world?

It’s a lot and it’s a lot of go go go, a lot of things happening at once. It feels good to let it go. I held this for a while, even the first five have been out for a while, so it felt really good to let it go.

Have there been any responses from fans that have surprised you with the direction they interpreted the songs?

Yeah, there’s a couple of them where people have taken them in a direction that I hadn’t intended, like ‘that’s not what it’s about but I like it.’ ‘Love You Anymore’ had a couple of interesting ones, ‘Trailer Park’ people are always intrigued by, but they’re also kind of stumped, like ‘what’s the deal?’ There’s a couple where people are on the same wavelength but a different page.

You obviously worked with Luke Dick on this project and he’s such a legend in the industry. Can you talk about the first interactions that you had with him and how he came to be a part of the project?

Yeah, so Luke writes for the same publishing company that I do – Little Louder – and I went over to his house one day and we just kind of hung out and got to know each other. It took us about two or three times of writing to where we actually got something, but the first time we just really hit it off and we started writing demos together. I remember one of the first ones was ‘Don’t Come Lookin” and I just kind of liked where that was headed. I mean I lived off Luke Dick demos for a while and some of them weren’t even songs I wrote, they were just songs where I liked what he was doing and how he was doing them. There’s really no one else in town that I’ve worked with that are producing the kinds of sounds that he is.

Well there’s such a specific sound of this record, it’s completely timeless and a very ‘outlaw country’ vibe, a sound that I think a lot have people have moved away from and you needed a very specific producer to kind of draw that out.

I haven’t heard a lot of those sounds in a really long time and it was really awesome to get to work with him. I just saw him yesterday and it’s always a privilege to work with him.

You’ve talked a bit about some of the songs that weren’t yours that you lived with, but I know you wrote every song on the record, so was that something that was very important to you in leading out and introducing yourself?

Oh yeah, I mean before I got signed, I had put out three records by myself that I wrote all by myself, so when I got to town and they were like ‘hey, we want to put you in a room with some other people, I thought absolutely no, we don’t do that.’ I did it a couple of times and then I got it. It was really important to me, I didn’t want to cut something that I hadn’t had a hand on.

Well you do want to be able to stand behind every song on the tracklist. I know before Nashville you had spent some time in Maryland and California, can you talk about how that journey has shaped the kind of music you’re putting out?

Well, there’s a good music scene in Maryland, there’s a lot of blues and country and there’s a circuit of like 15 of us who’d bop around, especially in the Baltimore scene – there’s a lot of hip hop and alternative in Baltimore. My drummer and I have been making music together since we were 14 and he’s done it for a decade in Baltimore, the first of my stuff he and I did together, so home was very influential to me. There’s so much great stuff there, and great venues now – the Merriweather, Ram’s Head… It was always around, at least to me, it was always there.

Landing in Nashville then, was it a big learning curve getting into the town and the industry?

It was really interesting because I didn’t move down here and then go and play all those writer’s rounds and get noticed, I had been noticed from out of state, so I came in and I was already writing with, off the bat, with Casey Beathard, Luke Dick… really top of the line writers. So, immediately, it was like ‘let’s get in there and after it,’ automatically I felt like the stakes were raised. In the beginning, I was trying to be a sponge and learn as much as I could, I was having to learn a whole new set of skills, aside from my own.

Leading onto the record, how did the idea of ‘Greenbroke’ take place and what did it mean to you?

Greenbroke didn’t really shape up until I started writing for the second half of the record, it was ‘Love You Anymore,’ ‘Don’t Take Much,’ ‘Fearless’ and ‘Don’t Come Lookin” – I didn’t really have a title for the record yet, but I was back home and I think I had just had my wisdom teeth yanked out. I was sitting in my chair, staring out at the screen door and it took me a couple of weeks to flush out. I had the rough outline and I took it to Jeff Hyde and asked him to help me tweak it and it just kind of came to life.

Do you find that happens often – leading with the melody rather than the lyrics?

It can go one way or the other, cos I’ll play for hours and in those hours things will come to me. It takes a bit of time for that sort of stuff. I think as soon as I started writing Greenbroke, I knew it needed to be the title of the record – it had never been written before, and I thought it could be so cool. I took the song to the studio with my band in Baltimore, and my guitarist came up with this kick ass solo and I thought ‘that’s it.’

So what’s up for the rest of the year?

So for the rest of the year, I’m writing a good bit when I can and the rest of the time, I’m pretty much on the road until the week before Christmas. This year, I’m just playing every show that I can.

I’m excited for you – good luck with the rest of the year!

Thank you.

The post INTERVIEW: Jackson Dean on ‘Greenbroke’ appeared first on off the record.

Jackson Dean has announced that he will release his debut album – Greenbroke – on 11th March through Big Machine records. Having played bars in Maryland – the stompin’ grounds that gave the world the Brothers Osborne while still in high school – after a stint in California, he found his home in Nashville. Ending up with four record deals on the table, Dean ultimately signed with Big Machine records.  “I don’t know what I thought it would be,” he concedes. “I was living in a little shack on my grandfather’s property, playing shows and writing songs. It was about the force of the music, and the way it moved people. That was what I was chasing, and I ended up here.” Now, Dean will release his debut album on the 11th March – Greenbroke. One word instead of two, a state of mind as well as being, it’s an ethos the hard-charging performer lives by. “Never lose your wild,” explains Dean. “You can be tame enough to be in the room, but never let go of that untamed sense of who you are. That’s where your truest self lives.”

Working with Grammy-nominated songwriter/producer Luke Dick, they’ve crafted an atmospheric, musically-forward project where guitars slash, drums thump and Dean’s raw baritone creates a frenzy on the Cri du Coeur title track, the haunted courage of “Fearless,” the hushed benediction “Wings,” breezy ganjo-country of “Don’t Take Much” and the stomping National guitar-streaked first single “Don’t Come Lookin’.” Equal parts swagger and introspection, the musk of a young man’s machismo tempers that low slung delivery that comes from living life along the fringe.

“We’ve always made our way, done what we had to do,” explains the mature beyond his years writer. “We were raised to live without fear, to look what you had to do in the eye – and get on with it. There’s a freedom that comes with living that way. You know whatever happens, you’re gonna find a way. It goes back to the idea of being greenbroke; you can go anywhere, but that doesn’t mean you have to surrender your untamed self.”

GREENBROKE will be released March 11, 2022. Pre-orders begin March 4 HERE. 

 Don’t Come Lookin’ | Jackson Dean, Luke Dick

Trailer Park | Jackson Dean, Cary Barlowe, Jesse Frasure

Fearless | Jackson Dean, Luke Dick, Jonathan Scott Sherwood

Don’t Take Much | Jackson Dean, Marv Green, JT Harding

Superstitions | Jackson Dean, Luke Dick, Dan Tyminski

Love You Anymore | Jackson Dean, Brian Bunn, Phillip Lammonds

Red Light | Jackson Dean, Jonathan Scott Sherwood, Ryan Tyndell

Other Than Me | Jackson Dean, Bryan Simpson, Ryan Tyndell

Wings | Jackson Dean, Park Chisolm

Greenbroke | Jackson Dean, Jeff Hyde

The post Jackson Dean to Release Debut Album Greenbroke on 11th March appeared first on off the record.

Jackson Dean is a unique kind of country artist – the 20-year-old songwriter has a raw knuckle approach to music. A little more complicated, a little more thrown down, Big Machine Records have introduced the young man from Odenton, Maryland with the introspective track “Wings.” Pre-order is now available for his debut collection JACKSON DEAN, to be released on April 30.

“When you look at me, I may look a little wild, or a little rootless,” he admits, “and that’s probably true. I love that rock edge that Country has, but I also like those songs that core into you, that get real honest over a slower track. If you want to understand me, listen to ‘Wings,’ and you’ll realize I’m not an angel, but I try to reckon on what I’ve done – and always make things right. That said, I’m also somebody you can’t really hold.”

Produced by Luke Dick and Park Chisolm, the moody track is a sparse consideration of leaving and being gone. With a slightly gravel voice, Dean opens the ballad by confessing, “I wish I had wings/ Take me away from all that I seen/ And all the trouble I’ve made…”

Dean’s brooding song celebrates the need to wash oneself clean – and move beyond the things in life that weigh you down. With a minimal lyric, his earthy baritone echoes with both loneliness and a hunger to rise above.

Like the rest of Dean’s upcoming debut project, “Wings,” which also features sometime Black Crowe Fred Eltringham on drums and Bonnie Raitt veteran Kenny Greenberg on electric guitar, has the terseness of a grown man maintaining honesty in the strain of how hard life can be. But “Wings” also explores freeing oneself from mistakes, guilt and self-inflicted agony.

“I was raised to own what you do, whether it’s good or bad,” Dean explains. “Truth is: everything you do stays on you. But when you start moving, when you look into the sky, that’s when you know freedom. Wings – like songs — are the ultimate freedom, really, cause they can pick you up and take you anywhere.”

Discovered by William Morris Endeavour’s Jay Williams from selling out local clubs, he was signed to a publishing deal by Eric Church advocate Arturo Buenahora. Suddenly, the kid, who’d grown up going to work with his hard-working contractor father, spent his last couple years flying into Nashville at 8 am on Monday mornings, writing songs for three or four days and sleeping where he could, then flying out on Thursday nights to gig around the same Maryland bars where the Brothers Osborne cut their teeth on Fridays, Saturdays and occasionally Sundays.

“My Dad raised me to not be afraid of the work, to show up and do the job, stay ‘til you’re done – and make sure the work is good. It’s the secret of his success, so when the opportunity to really do this came along, I was not going to let anything stop me… Between Arturo and Luke Dick, they saw I was a little bit different, a little more intense and maybe honor-bound, and they didn’t want to water that down, so I wouldn’t think of giving anything less than my all to the writing or playing for the people back home.”

With his self-titled collection nearing release, “Wings” is the first salvo from an artist who’s here for the long haul. Soulful, just this side of being on the run, it suggests an artist – like Dwight Yoakam, Hank Williams or Marty Stuart – who finds their truth in motion, in leaving, in getting gone.

The post Big Machine Introduces New Signing Jackson Dean With ‘Wings’ appeared first on off the record.