Meet Your New Favorite Band (That Sounds Like Your Old Favorite Band)

Hip-hop artists

If you liked: Ludacris, Missy Elliott, 54, and Lauryn Hill, 50

Then check out: Samara Cyn, Doechii, Hanumankind

Tennessee-born Samara Cyn blends hip-hop, R&B and neo-soul into something smart, smooth and self-assured. Just 26, she draws from Lauryn Hill and Erykah Badu, 54, but with a Southern flavor. “Moving Day,” her standout track from 2024, “captures the spirit of self-assertion in a mellow yet confident package,” says Sowmya Krishnamurthy, a hip-hop journalist and author of Fashion Killa: How Hip-Hop Revolutionized High Fashion. “Her bravado, vulnerability and sweetly defiant attitude are a nod to icons like Missy Elliott and Left Eye.”

If you’re looking for something even more unpredictable, try Doechii. The Tampa-born artist exploded with the 2020 viral hit “Yucky Blucky Fruitcake,” but she’s since shed the cutesy veneer for a fiercer, more genre-bending sound, like the mega-popular “Anxiety.”

And then there’s Hanumankind, a Kerala, India-born, Texas-raised MC putting Indian hip-hop on the map. (Indeed, he’s signed to Def Jam India.) His crisp flows and lyrical punch reflect his Houston roots and global ambition, especially on “Big Dawgs.” 

 ’70s Afrobeat artists

If you liked: Fela Kuti, Tony Allen and Orlando Julius

Then check out:  Burna Boy, Rema, Wizkid

Burna Boy, Rema and Wizkid are leading a new global wave of Nigerian pop that draws heavily on Afrobeat’s bold rhythms and revolutionary spirit. Burna Boy delivers gritty, anthem-like songs with a commanding presence, while Rema blends Afrobeat, trap and R&B into something more nimble and genre-fluid. Wizkid mixes in pop, dance and reggae — try not to bop to “Kese (Dance).”

“I recently got to see performances by a pair of Nigerian stars,” says New York Times critic Jon Caramanica. “Burna Boy, who functions in a messianic way, with grounded, earthy anthems; and Rema, who works in a few different modes, including soft-hearted and tough.” These artists, he notes, are “bringing Nigeria’s rich history to the world at an unprecedented scale.”

Jam bands 

If you liked: Grateful Dead, Dave Matthews Band and Phish 

Then check out:  Goose, Billy Strings, Eggy

If your idea of bliss involves 20-minute jams, euphoric crowds and songs that float more than finish, meet your new heroes. “Goose has carried the torch for the jam scene,” says Mike Ayers, author of the 2025 book Sharing in the Groove: The Untold Story of the ’90s Jam Band Explosion and the Scene That Followed. “They just sold out Madison Square Garden without a hit single or record label. It’s all word of mouth and devotion.” Goose blends layered improv with ’80s synth textures. Think Phish meets Kate Bush, 67.

For a more rootsy detour, check out Billy Strings, whose live shows fuse bluegrass virtuosity with Dead-style sprawl. “Billy’s shows can feel like a bluegrass rave,” says Ayers. “It’s Bonnaroo with banjos, mandolins and upright bass.”

And make room on your jam-band bingo card for Eggy, a fierce Connecticut foursome lighting up the touring circuit. “They blend noodly guitars with funk explorations and a slew of original tunes,” says Ayers. But they also dig deep into covers, like 83-year-old Paul Simon’s “You Can Call Me Al” and Wilco’s “I Am Trying to Break Your Heart,” and “reinvent them in ways you’ve never heard before,” Ayers says.

Baroque pop 

If you liked: The Beach Boys, Big Star, The Byrds and Belle & Sebastian

Then check out: Black Country, New Road; MF Tomlinson; Spellling

Baroque pop has always been about rich arrangements, literate lyrics and a little theatrical flair. Black Country, New Road are bringing it all back with a modern twist.

“If you love your pop to sound ornate, jaunty, artful and refined, BCNR’s 2025 album Forever Howlong is the way to go,” says Anthony Fantano, host of the popular YouTube music channel The Needle Drop. “They’re not inventing a new sound but reviving one that’s been out of style for a minute, and it feels refreshing.” For fans of Belle & Sebastian’s whimsy or The Beach Boys’ ambition, this young U.K. band’s sweeping, unpredictable songs will feel like a revelation.

On the more cinematic end of the spectrum is Australian-born, London-based MF Tomlinson, whose work blends folk, shoegaze, art rock, prog and orchestral traditions into sprawling soundscapes. His 2025 album, Die to Wake Up From a Dream, pushes the baroque-pop palette to its limits, with arrangements that feel both intimate and immense.

And Spellling, the project of Bay Area composer and producer Chrystia “Tia” Cabral, takes a different route to grandeur. Her 2021 self-produced album, The Turning Wheel, enlisted an ensemble of 31 musicians to create a kaleidoscopic swirl of experimental pop and ornate instrumentation. The result topped multiple year-end lists, cementing her place as one of baroque pop’s most adventurous modern architects.

Female country legends 

If you liked: Loretta Lynn, Patty Loveless, 68, and The Judds

Then check out: Carly Pearce, Lainey Wilson, Ashley Monroe

If your country roots run deep and you’ve been known to belt out “Coal Miner’s Daughter” on road trips, Carly Pearce belongs in your rotation. “She grew up idolizing Loretta, Patty and The Judds,” says veteran music critic Alanna Nash. “She fell hard for Loretta’s tell-it-like-it-is songwriting that spoke directly to women.”

That emotional honesty shines in Pearce’s Grammy-winning 2021 duet “Never Wanted to Be That Girl” and her aching tribute “Dear Miss Loretta,” featuring Patty Loveless. Pearce isn’t just keeping country’s female legacy alive, she’s giving it fresh legs. “Country music just doesn’t get any better,” says Nash.

Also flying the flag for fearless women in country are Lainey Wilson and Ashley Monroe, Nash says. Wilson brings twangy swagger and a Southern rock edge that recalls the grit of Tanya Tucker. Monroe, both as a solo artist and member of the Pistol Annies, writes with the kind of vulnerability and razor-sharp insight that defined country’s golden era.

New Wave 

If you liked: Siouxsie & the Banshees, Blondie, Berlin and The Primitives

Then check out: Wet Leg, The Big Moon, Nation of Language

When Rob Tannenbaum, Rolling Stone music journalist and coauthor of I Want My MTV, first heard Wet Leg’s viral 2021 single “Chaise Longue,” he says it “transported me to 1981.”

The duo’s giddy, deadpan cool evokes Delta 5, the B-52’s and even The Cars. “When I mentioned a few ’80s groups, they had no idea what I was talking about,” Tannenbaum recalls of meeting the band. That only makes the resemblance more charming.

Tannenbaum also recommends The Big Moon, a U.K. quartet whose hooky, indie-rock roots have evolved into something warmer and more expansive. Led by singer-guitarist Juliette Jackson, the band’s 2017 debut, Love in the 4th Dimension, was a tightly wound set of angsty guitar anthems. By their third album, Here Is Everything, they were delivering a moving portrait of new motherhood and friendship.

Nation of Language, meanwhile, brings a more synth-driven melancholy. The Brooklyn trio, founded by married couple Ian Devaney and Aidan Noell, craft shimmering analog textures and plaintive melodies that feel like lost transmissions from the era of New Order and OMD. Their forthcoming fourth album, Dance Called Memory, comes out Sept. 19.

Classic folk-rock

If you liked: Neil Young, 79, Joni Mitchell, 81, and Joan Baez, 84

Then check out: Lily Seabird, Greg Freeman, Hannah Frances

If your musical foundation was built on your parents’ record collection — The Band, Joni, Dylan — these three rising artists are worth a spin. “Lily Seabird feels like the closest thing to Joni Mitchell or [rediscovered 1960s folk trailblazer] Karen Dalton in 2025,” says Josh Terry, a music journalist and author of the Substack No Expectations. “Her voice is haunting, and her writing is rock solid.” From the same Burlington, Vermont, scene comes Greg Freeman, whose “reedy and twangy voice hits the same highs and scorching intensity as Neil Young,” says Terry. And then there’s Hannah Frances, a singular talent who blends folk and jazz with the nuance and elegance of Joan Baez. Together, they make vintage sounds feel vital again.