Inside Vevo’s DSCVR Artists To Watch Program

Yesterday, music video channel Vevo unveiled their 2025 DSCVR Artists to Watch. For 18 artists — Bryant Barnes (Republic), Charlotte Plank (RCA), Cloudy June (Sony Germany), Diss Gacha (Columbia / Sony Music Entertainment Italy), Ela Taubert (UMLE), Ella Langley (Columbia), FloyyMenor (UnitedMasters), Good Neighbours (Polydor), Jordan Adetunji (Warner UK), KATSEYE (HYBE / Geffen Records), LUCKY LOVE (Belem Music), Nia Smith (Polydor), Pozer (Robots & Humans), Shallipopi (Plutomania Records / Dapper Music & Entertainment), Towa Bird (Interscope Records), Tucker Wetmore (UMG Nashville / Back Blocks Music), Tz da Coronel (The Orchard Brazil), Wisp (Music Soup / Interscope Records) – it means joining past honorees such as Billie Eilish, Sam Smith, Chappell Roan, Conan Gray, Remi Wolf and more.

Of course, no prognostication list is ever perfect. Ask the Grammys about some of their Best New Artist winners, but Vevo has an excellent track record based on picking and getting behind the artists they believe in. To understand their selection process I spoke with VP of Music & Talent Jordan Glickson.

Steve Baltin: As I understand, you have your 2025 artists to watch, correct?

Jordan Glickson: We are pretty close. We're in the process of filming everybody right now. While we've selected them all and all the labels and artists have agreed, nothing's done until it's done. So, there have been instances in the past, and this is the twelfth year we've done Artists to Watch, things come up. An artist isn't able to make it for some reason. For us, one of the things that sets our list apart from the many forecasting lists that come out is that every artist shoots original content with us. So unfortunately, there have been times in the past where someone that we wanted on the list wasn't able to make it for a situation that was beyond their control and beyond ours. In almost every one of those cases, we found a way to collaborate with those artists in the future on something. But without exception, to be part of Artists to Watch, you have to come to us and film these performances.

Baltin: Take me through the criteria you use to choose the artist to watch.

Glickson: We have our regular DSCVR program, where we feature emerging artists all year long. We do 30 to 40 artists, all year under the DSCVR umbrella. Those are emerging artists that we really like, and we want to put a spotlight on. When we get into Artists to Watch, we're really forecasting not just artists we like, but that we think are going to be going to grow substantially over the next 12 months. So, whereas when we're doing DSCVR throughout the year, it really is just who do we like? There are 25 of us in the US, about 15 in the UK that get in rooms and really just talk about whether an artist is worthy of being under our DSCVR umbrella across different genres and all those kinds of things. But when we get into Artists to Watch, our taste plays a big part of it. Our expertise in understanding what makes an artist, not just someone we like, but someone we think is going to grow substantially in the next 12 months. So, of course, data does play a little bit of a role in it. We want to see how they've grown, their subscribers have grown, their views have grown, their social media has grown over the past six to 12 months. But it is a lot of forecasting. We are looking at their marketing plans and their release schedule. Do they have a tour coming up that maybe hasn't been announced yet but is really going to shine a spotlight on them? What are the things that are going to happen, again, in the next six to 12 months, that besides the fact that we just really like them, is going to really help their exposure? We're trying to represent our audience and the Vevo network, which means we're trying to select artists across a multitude of genres representing the globe. So, while we do have studios just in New York and LA, our list this year includes artists from 11 different countries. And you could say nine genres. Obviously, it's harder and harder every day to say an artist is a singular genre. Genres are blending. Is it country? Is it pop? Is it Afro Beats or is it R &B? It's so hard to say someone is just one genre. Conservatively speaking, we have about nine genres represented across the 20 artists that we're featuring this year. It's usually 20 plus or minus one. Again, sometimes something comes up where we have our list and then there's an artist that unfortunately can't participate, but the goal is always about 20 artists.

Baltin: Give me some past Artists to Watch so I can get a sense of past choices.

Glickson: Billie Eilish was part of Artists to Watch. Ice Spice was part of Artists to Watch. Pop Smoke, Alessia Cara, Glorilla, Sam Smith. As recently as last year we had Chappell Roan as part of Artists to Watch. It's hard to say that anyone has skyrocketed to fame more than her in the past 12 months. That's really a great example, obviously of someone that we picked. There are definitely some we look back and go, "What happened to them?" It could be for a variety of reasons. We all know there are so many factors that play into whether or not an artist succeeds. But also in today's, era, it's even harder to say what's maybe a success and what's not. We have a lot of artists that we're very proud are a part of our list and maybe they're not Chappell Roan, maybe they're not Billie Eilish selling out three nights at Madison Square Garden, but they built loyal fan bases. For five, 10 years they're living off of their music and they're playing big venues and they're touring, and they have these passionate fans that are keeping their career alive. Again, maybe they're not rocketing to superstardom. Billie Eilish and artists like that, but they are definitely artists that we're proud to have included and would definitely consider successes. –

Baltin: Give me examples of a couple of other artists from the last few years who haven't gotten as big as Chappell, but have been successful.

Glickson: Historically there are artists like Giveon and Sam Fender, Lewis Capaldi, Maggie Rogers. Again, these aren't artists that are selling out. Well, I think Maggie Rogers actually has sold out multiple nights of Madison Square Garden. So maybe I have to take that back. But we are selecting globally. So, there are artists that maybe haven't broken through as much in the US. Sam Fender, I think is a great example, who has a good following in the US and is definitely a success, but he's even bigger in the UK. If you were to ask our UK team to talk about some of their biggest successes they may have a few that aren't as big on this side of the pond, but are definitely big successes over there.

Baltin: Let's look at someone like Chappell for a second first. You mentioned touring being part of it, marketing. What was it about Chappell when you look back on last year that made you see her skyrocket?

Glickson: First and foremost, it was the music. That is ultimately where it all starts. We're essentially starting with, whose music do we think is great? Because none of the none of the rest of it matters. A great marketing plan, but you're not marketing quality music it ultimately, doesn't matter. For us, it really does start with music. During this process, we're usually privy to some unreleased music as well. So, everything we played in that meeting, everyone was like, "This is amazing. She's a star." Then you look at the materials that the label and the management and whoever else have provided about what they have coming and how they're going to put a spotlight to the world on that great music. Having all that and what we knew of upcoming tours and album and song release schedule and video content release, we're obviously a video network. So, knowing what they're going to be putting out across social media and across Vevo and YouTube, we're looking at all of that and knowing that there's a plan there and seeing that her label, her team, had a strategy for her. It wasn't just, "Let's put out great music and hope for the best." They had the next few months mapped out. We're always looking at that to see how they are going to put a spotlight, as I said, on this amazing music. Because no platform, Vevo or anyone else, can break an artist solely by themselves. We can say someone's the greatest artist ever, but if no one else is doing anything to put a spotlight on them, it's not going to work. So, we want to know what else, how are other platforms supporting them and what are they doing to support themselves? Obviously, touring is a really big part of that. She's had some great tour looks and then it just builds. It's always hard to look 12 months out. But if you can look three to six months out, where they're laying the foundation, then everything builds on top of that.

Baltin: Okay, so now let's move to this year. Take me through some of the artists you picked.

Glickson: FloyyMenor is an artist we really like. One we're really excited about is KATSEYE. The reason we're excited about KATSEYE is because we all know how big K -pop is, but it's really hard to get in early on K -pop because of the way that genre builds and is marketed. By the time BTS or Blackpink or artists like that came to the US, it was like someone just flipped a switch and they were gigantic overnight. KATSEYE is a K -pop act that we feel like isn't there yet, but they're getting there even since. This is one of the things that's always interesting about our list is we're picking these artists, then we're filming these artists, then we're releasing the content, and as quickly as music moves now, things can happen. A lot can happen for an artist in that short period of time from when we select them to when it launches. I think you're starting to see that with KATSEYE where the song "Touch" is starting to get pretty good recognition already and we haven't even launched the list yet. So, we're always looking at things like that where this art versus science of picking an artist that's already got momentum but trying to avoid a situation whereby the time we're announcing them on the list, they're already huge. So, we're loving the trajectory you see from KATSEYE. Tucker Wetmore and Ella Langley, Bryant Barnes, show you the trajectory of music. These are artists that are in that country pop realm, and we haven't had country represented every year in our list, not because we don't love country. When we do these lists, we're not going in and saying, "There are 20 artists, we need a certain amount of hip hop, a certain amount of pop, a certain amount of country." We're just trying to find the 20 best artists. Sometimes in years past, we weren't able to identify a country artist that made the list. But no one can argue with the fact that country has had a huge year as a genre. Country has become pop, pop artists are leaning more country. There's really that blend going on. You're seeing that represented in our list this year with multiple country artists. Ela Taubert is a Latin artist that we've really had our eye on all year. She was actually, and this happens occasionally, an artist that was featured in our DSCVR program during the year and then is also being re -featured as part of Artists to Watch. That's because, again, when we're doing DSCVR throughout the year, we're looking at artists that we just really like and really feel like our audience should know about. Then when we come to Artists to Watch, we're forecasting really those next six to 12 months. So, we've seen her growth and we see where we think she's going to continue to because it's an important point you asked earlier about how we select the artists. We had over 600 official submissions this year to pick 20 beyond those 600. As I said, we have a team of in total about 40 people involved with the selection who are all just music fans that may bring someone up in the meeting that wasn't even officially submitted. We've had artists make the list because someone said, "Oh, I saw this artist didn't get submitted, but they're amazing. I saw them live, we should check them out." So very rarely, if ever, is someone ending up making our list that is hitting our radar for the first time during this discussion process. Most of these artists, again, if not all of them, are artists that have already been on our radar throughout the year. They have music videos on Vevo that we've put in playlists or put in our connected TV programming. In some cases, they did our DSCVR program. In several cases, they've been part of what we call DSCVR New Music, which is essentially a social asset and a connected TV asset that we use to highlight a very emerging artist's video pretty early in their career. Then Artist to Watch becomes a jumping off point to hopefully, I mentioned artists like Billie Eilish before, building Artist to Watch is just the next step. Then we film other original content with them and continue working with them throughout their career as they reach a level of superstardom. It's not just Artists to Watch and then hope for the best. It's usually our first major investment into an artist that we're hoping becomes a partnership for many years to come.