The sounds of youth

The Beths broke through last year with their album Future Me Hates Me and toured through America.

Longtime music writer Graham Reid goes into bat for “young people’s music”.

The company was generously aged and so was the wine. The conversation flowed easily — old times mostly, and current politics — but then the subject turned to music and one of our Gold Card company turned to me and, because he knew of my four-decade engagement with pop music said: "There's no decent music these days."

I gently demurred but he wouldn't let it go: "Yeah? Like what?"

So, where do I go with that?

It would be a pointless discussion to introduce excellent young artists to someone who wouldn't recognise their names, or had no interest in finding out about them.

Someone who remembers the days before television isn't the target demographic for artists such as 21-year old Swedish singer Zara Larsson or the award-winning internet sensation Troye Sivan whose debut album TRXYE went top five in the US in 2014 when he was 19.

But there is decent music these days.

For those who have somehow let their passion for pop music slip, here are some younger artists making music that deserves a wider hearing.

Some doesn't give itself up on a first hearing, but my parents didn't get The Beatles either. Until With the Beatles became my Dad's favourite album alongside Louis Armstrong's Hello Dolly.

Six for your your consideration, in no particular order ...

Ella Mai

Yes, this 24-year old British singer of Jamaican and Irish parents was named for Ms Fitzgerald but that's where the similarity ends. However in the context of her beat-driven and soulful R'n'B she drops in some subtle vocal slides and has an interesting range when she extends herself.

On a first hearing she can sound like just another contemporary soul-pop singer but for her self-titled debut album last year the musical textures were clever and engaging, she wrote pop-length songs (most under four minutes so they don't outstay their welcome) and it included her yearning Grammy-nominated hit Boo'd Up.

There are a hilarious number of writers credited (eight and herself on the piano ballad Easy) but this always sounds like Ella Mai running the game.

Soul singer Teeks. Photograph by Greg Bowker.

Teeks

The immaculately presented and vocally poised Teeks — Te Karehana Gardiner-Toi from Northland — channels the emotional depth of artists such as the young Sam Cooke, Smokey Robinson and others who tap a deep reservoir of soul music where secular and spiritual music meet. There's also a soft doo-wop heart to his small catalogue, which doesn't yet extend much beyond The Grapefruit Skies EP of 2017. But his molasses-smooth vocals, elegant songwriting and stage confidence suggest that when his album arrives it will be quite something. If soft, understated and soulful singing — without the vocal gymnastics common among young artists — appeals, then The Grapefruits Skies EP is for you.

Australian singer songwriter Julia Jacklin.

Julia Jacklin

The critically acclaimed 2014 debut album Don't Let the Kids Win by this Australian singer-songwriter took off at such a pace she spent more than two years touring it with her small band and delivered her exceptional follow-up Crushing earlier this year.

That debut announced a mature songwriting talent and a powerfully expressive singer. The wise title track contains the following: "Don't let your grandmother die while you're away, a cheap trip to Thailand's not gonna make up for never getting to say goodbye."

Crushing — already in my "best of the year" list — confirms her gifts in songs about self-awareness, the pressure to party when you just want to grieve over a lost relationship, the death of a friend and the exceptional ballad Don't Know How to Keep Loving You ("now that I know you") in which this 28-year old wonders how to sustain love once the first flush fades. A timeless sentiment and song, on a remarkable album.

The Beths

Fizzy, slightly distorted pop songs arrived in abundance with this Auckland band's debut album Future Me Hates Me of last year. All graduates of the jazz school at the University of Auckland — not a skerrick of that in these 10 songs — the four-piece draw a line between the polished radio pop of Blondie and Abba (verses and choruses), the gristle of the Ramones and memorable power pop. There may be nothing exactly new here but they play it with such enthusiasm and economy that it's infectious. Pop-rock, if you remember that affectionately.

Tiny Ruins have released their third album Olympic Girls. Hollie Fullbrook second from right.

Tiny Ruins

Tiny Ruins — Hollie Fullbrook — brought an intimate folk sound into the New Zealand scene on two previous albums but for this year's Olympic Girls (Tiny Ruins now being the band) she extended her poetic and allusive lyrics into a broader sonic palette, which nodded to dark cabaret (One Million Flowers), dreamy pop (How Much, Holograms) and more. But the closely observed School of Design harks right back to intelligent, late 60s/early 70s folk.

Utterly engaging.

Seth Haapu

For many young artists, The Album isn't as important as it once was. Songs on Spotify or EPs are the more common vehicles, as with this Auckland-based singer-songwriter.

Haapu works as much behind-the-scenes as a producer/writer as he has presenting his own music across three EPs since 2016. With an ear on contemporary soul, his restrained songs have been growing in assurance. Of his recent single New Wave (which he also sings in te reo and which won him the Kaitito Waiata Māori Autaia/Best Māori Songwriter at the Waiata Māori Music Awards) he says: "It draws on the ocean as a metaphor for finding peace in the calm before a break, diving in and coming up renewed on the other side". Can't wait for the next installment of that renewal.

So there are six for starters, and when you find them on Spotify there will be leads into other similar artists. It could be the start of journey into what we sometimes dismiss as "young people's music". It's pretty decent.

●Graham Reid is a longtime music writer, university lecturer, former award-winning Herald journalist and currently hosts his own music.travel.arts website elsewhere.co.nz