Tomorrow’s Five: Nesya, adore, Omar Courtz, Hudson Westbrook, and Geordie Greep

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By Sydney Salk, Vrinda Jagota, Brandon Ousley, and Leah Mandel of Third Bridge Creative

In this week’s installment of our column exploring emerging artists, we’re enjoying Nebraska’s post-punk pop star, an elusive electronic duo in New York City, Puerto Rico’s next big trap fusionist, the Texan putting his bid for country’s top spot, and the former United Kingdom rocker going solo.    

NESYA

Chartmetric Artist Rank: 1,275

Genre: Minimal Wave

Country: U.S.

Self-proclaimed as the “ultimate despair girl,” NESYA’s gothic beats are sure to become the internet’s favorite soundtrack for Halloween season. Often posting from a liminal pink bathroom, NESYA’s visuals reference anime and mall goth aesthetics while her sound bears more resemblance to minimalist dark wave. Her 2023 track “delulu” started trending at the end of August when a prison inmate who goes by Love Galore shared TikTok videos of him dancing to the song, his biggest racking up more than 33.5M views. “delulu” made it to #8 on Spotify’s Viral US 50 and #23 on Billboard’s TikTok chart. Older song “loving me is really hard” is also on the rise, gaining 136.2K Spotify streams in the past month for a total of 1.16M.

adore

Chartmetric Artist Rank: 12,603

Genre: Hyperpop

Country: U.S.

There’s not much information available about adore. Their artist pages on streaming platforms feature animated avatars, and their bio simply says “welcome to nyc2,” with their location set to New York. What we do know is that the group is experiencing explosive growth right now on Chartmetric—in the past six months, they have seen an exponential increase in Spotify monthly listeners, reaching 2.39M this week.

They’ve released a handful of electronic singles, including “did i tell u that i miss u,” which has an ‘80s dream-pop vibe, and has been used in 250K+ videos on TikTok since its May 1st release. It evokes strong emotions from fans on YouTube, too. Many users comment that the song makes them nostalgic, that the production evokes a poignant mixture of sadness and happiness, and that the slowed down and sped up versions are just as catchy as the original. It seems like adore has a bright future ahead—whoever and wherever they might be. 

Omar Courtz

Chartmetric Artist Rank: 273

Genre: Reggaeton

Country: Puerto Rico

Puerto Rican rapper/singer and songwriter Omar Courtz’s career has blossomed over the last few years, thanks to his affinity for widening urban Latin pop music’s impact in the mainstream. The Mr. 305 Records signee cements his hit-making power with his highly-anticipated debut album, PRIMERA MUSA. Released on September 20, the 17-track album blends trap, house, R&B, Jersey club, and reggaeton to create an eclectic sound inspired by Courtz’s life and musical influences. The album is getting widespread positive critical reception and listeners are enamored with its diverse singles, such as “UNA NOTi” (16.7M Spotify streams), “LUCES DE COLORES” (35.4M streams), and “Goddess” (14.2M streams). But the affectionate De La Rose-assisted track, “Q U E V A S H A C E R H O Y ?” has had the biggest impact, racking up 99.5M Spotify streams after Omar doing a humorous TikTok dance trend in public took off on September 24, generating over 30.9M views and sparking over 42K videos.

Hudson Westbrook

Chartmetric Artist Rank: 9,025

Genre: Country 

Country: U.S.

Just over a month after previewing his first song, “Take it Slow,” on TikTok, Texas Tech student Hudson Westbrook played his first-ever show, at Cook’s Garage in Lubbock, as a festival headliner. On that fateful post, which now has over 372K likes, fellow young country sensation Tucker Wetmore commented, “I’m a fan.” Now, Westbrook, who has a nicest-guy-on-the-football-team aura about him, has four more singles out, and is touring with traditional country booze anthem and dirt road heartbreak balladeers Midland and Eli Young Band. His fans (which largely appear to be young women) have already memorized the words to “5 to 9,” and continue to give country crooner his due on streaming—Westbrook’s newest release, “House Again,” has gained 1.8M streams on Spotify just 10 days after its release. 

Geordie Greep

Chartmetric Artist Rank: 19,300

Genre: Alternative Rock

Country: U.K.

After black midi's frontman Geordie Greep made an announcement in August that the experimental rock group was “an interesting band that’s indefinitely over,” he dropped a solo album. Released at the start of October, The New Sound is prog-art-jazz-rock and Zappa-inflected, with notes of salsa, musical theater, and post-punk. This strange, wry, sex-fueled, hour-long album is certainly not for everyone. Pitchfork called Greep’s “absurdist humanism” schtick “great in small doses but a lot to swallow…” Nonetheless, Greep is reaching his niche: fans affectionately call him “The Greeper,” refer to themselves as Greepheads, and laud his sound as “the perfect level of weird.” The video for “Holy, Holy” has over 700K YouTube views, while on Spotify the song is at 2.6M streams.

Portions of this are included in Sound Signal, a bi-weekly newsletter from Third Bridge Creative. Sign up here.

Visualizations by Alejandra Arevalo and cover image by Crasianne Tirado; data as of Oct.29, 2024.