The Next Big Thing?

Little Marbles
Linn and Julia make up Little Marbles, the coolest new duo on the Swedish indie-pop scene. Their fashion sense is rather un-Swedish as they dress very colourfully, but their musical style is typical of the poppier side of Swedish indie-pop. They have sweet, girly voices but the music has strong beats which give it a bit more punch. They mostly sing in Swedish but have a few English tracks which can be heard on their MySpace. There’s a great selection of songs on there (definitely enough to convince me to buy their album) and I recommend recent single Lär Mig as an introductory listen. Check out the video for a taste of their aceness. (p.s. thanks Nick for the recommendation!)
Hit potential: 32% Poptasticness: 88%

Anniela
She may not be a big name in her home country of Sweden yet, but Anniela’s already testing the waters in the UK, managing to get her new single My Confession added to the playlists of a couple of radio stations in the south of England. Unfortunately I don’t think her sound is suited to the tastes of UK dance music fans, but I do applaud her efforts. My Confession is not a particularly original sound (it’s quite 90s), but at the same time it’s not a copycat of RedOne or Cascada or any other popular dance song of the last few years, so it’s nice to see someone doing their own thing. There is no point to this song other than being a catchy, feel-good dance-pop track, and that’s fine by me. It’s a big step up from her debut Strip Teaser as well, so fingers crossed if she continues progressing at this rate she may create something quite exciting in a year or two!
Hit potential: 15% Poptasticness: 76%

Neon Trees
Is it 2005 again? Neon Trees are a new indie-electro-rock act who sound so much like The Bravery, I was surprised when Wikipedia did not inform me that the two bands had some of the same members. Despite their sound being slightly behind the times, Neon Trees’ current single Animal is doing fairly well in the US charts and there’s quite a bit of buzz about the band at the moment. Animal has a very catchy chorus (complete with excellently drawled “oh-oh”s) and their previous single 1983 is reasonably enjoyable too. Unfortunately for them, due to their similarity to other acts and the fact that the lead singer has horrible hair and pulls some rather unattractive facial expressions when singing, I don’t see them having a lasting career, but they could easily have a UK hit with Animal. Maybe they’ll be the new Orson. Lucky them!
Hit potential: 69% Poptasticness: 67%