It’s the time of the week again – time to vote for your favorite new artist on MTV Iggy!

This is a round-up of five of the best global bands we found this week. You have until Monday night at 11:59 p.m. USA Eastern Standard Time to vote for your favorite, using the bottom poll!

On Tuesday morning, the crowned artist will be featured on the MTV Iggy homepage marquee along with a tell-all interview.

May the best band walk away with the victory!

Lilly Wood & The Prick

Lilly Wood & The Prick sounds like a twisted children’s story, and, indeed, young people love them, and maybe some cooler children do too. But their band name is more of a jarring juxtaposition than a story. It highlights the disparity between their beautiful melodies and heavier compositions, or their heavier lyrics and lighter compositions. It may also be a statement on the mosaic of genres on their debut Invincible Friend, which range from dark Joy Division new wave to Tegan and Sara emo pop to Americana to Motown. What they lack in electronic madness and fanfare, they make up for in cerebral fusions, catchiness, and oddball videos. Singer Nili Hadida and The Prick’s (actually Bejamin Cotto)  popularity has since skyrocketed in France, their home country.

The Hard Nips

Brooklyn (by way of Japan) rockers Hard Nips bring art punk and heavy rock together in a way that just feels so right. They have a knack  for late-70s/early-80s, rump thumping hard rock hooks. These heavy ladies leaven their riffage with a hair-flipping ’80s tough-girl stance. Their songs can soar the pop heights but they’ll ground things before a tune is over by dipping into some sludgy drone. The name refers to the members’s homeland of Nippon — though it’s understandable if you initially took it as a different sort of reference. Members Yoko, Mariko, Emi, and The Gooch come from different parts of Japan but became friends in New York, bonding and carousing late into the night at the Japanese bar and restaurant Yoko ran. One thing led to another and soon they were in drummer Emi’s basement starting a band.

Angel Haze

Angel Haze, the 20 year-old rapper who identifies as bisexual and Native American, has had the kind of experiences in life that lead to an out-of-the-ordinary perspective. It’s not possible to listen to her and simultaneously reflect on her prodigious talent or the astonishing speed with which she doles out pieces of her mind. When she speeds up you’re just hanging on her every word faster, because, unless you have a debilitating attention problem, you are not thinking about anything when she is talking. You are listening to the lady. Her latest mixtape King showcases such a scintillating variety of flow that makes you wonder why this talent is still unsigned.

Birkii

An export out of Paris, France, Birkii was a conservatory violinist before joining us in the electropop world and spent her days cloistered in the world of virtuosity. And that control comes through in her expert restraint when layering sounds. Not too much, just right. Birkii’s subtle pop sensibility shines in her two current singles. The line between referencing Human League and completely ripping them off is a fine one, and it’s to her credit that she draws from those synth analog touches while keeping it current. The carefree eighties never sounded as vulnerable or direct as she does on “Morning Light.”

Hollie Cook

Hollie Cook was born into music: father is Paul Cook, who played drums in the Sex Pistols, and her mother is Jennie Matthias, who fronted The Belle Stars. She sings with the same gentle swing that made Phyllis Dillon a star, and, like lovers rock itself, she too is a product of London.  Old-school soul sounds might be the rage, but Hollie Cook takes a divergent path with her vintage tropical pop tunes. Her music is laced with a bit of US ’60s girl group sass that broadens her style. She set “Walking in the Sand,” originally performed by The Shangri-Las, to a dubby rhythm and made it sound like the song had always been and island thing — while somehow staying true to the original.

 

 

 

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