If you're looking for some cool new bands to get obsessed with, you're in luck. It's time for an autumnal tradition: Stereogum's list of the year's 40 Best New Artists. We've been publishing this list in the fall since 2010.
It is not a year-end list. And, as always, it's presented alphabetically and not ranked. The definition of "new" here is flexible, but the idea is to showcase young and developing musicians who've made a major leap in the 12 months since last year's list.
With a couple of exceptions who seemed to come out of nowhere, the spotlighted acts are on their first LP or haven't put one out yet. All of them have us eager to hear what's next. Meet our class of 2026, and find an accompanying playlist at the bottom of the article. —Chris DeVille We can only speculate that 16 Underground are at least partially named after the Sneaker Pimps' 1996 single "6 Underground," one of trip-hop's few big crossover pop moments. 16 Underground's members are rooted in the Southern California hardcore underground, and they still play hardcore shows, but their sound is a gentle, dreamy, evocative take on the shimmery electronic pop sounds of the '90s.
In 30 years, maybe someone will name a band after one of their songs. —Tom Breihan “My fans say I gain more power the pinker my hair gets,” Adéla recently revealed. This year, her hair got pinker. Since dropping her debut album Prima, the Slovakian pop star has been hard to miss, between her ode to AMC queen Nicole Kidman and the Bangerz-era banger “Ain’t In LA.” The 22-year-old moved to the States to study dance before being swooped up as a contestant on the K-pop reality show that birthed KATSEYE.
Rather than folding into the machinery of a girl group, she carved out a world of her own, quickly becoming an unmistakable fixture in pop culture. Adéla isn’t here to blend in — she’s here to turn heads. —Margaret Farrell Angine de Poitrine wear elaborate papier-mâché masks and polka-dot costumes, play polyrhythmic microtonal math-rock with a custom double-necked guitar, call themselves Khn and Klek, and claim to be 333-year-old time-traveling space aliens. They are, in other words, a lot.
What could easily teeter into empty gimmickry works because the viral Québécois duo has the chops and the songs to back it up, somehow spinning what should be niche music-dork wankery into genuine crowd-pleasing jams. —Peter Helman When two bands break up, another is born. That’s essentially how Leeds-based quartet Bathing Suits came together, bonding over a shared love of Gilla Band and Psychotic Monks after catching the two play in Sheffield. This year, the combustible dance-noise group has released their EP KILL Bathing Suits and teamed up with Mandy, Indiana’s Valentine Caulfield, further fueling their penchant for noisy, high-voltage collisions.
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