Not that there’s ever been a shortage of forward-thinking British artists shaping the international charts as well as the underground, but British music has seemed to be experiencing a peak of international and commercial popularity in recent years. British artists are crossing over into American charts and beyond at a rate that seems more frequent than ever. Recently, Mark Ronson’s “Uptown Funk” spent weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, in addition to topping charts in Australia, Canada, Ireland, France, and New Zealand, and set a new record for the most streamed track in a single week in the U.K.
Promising new voices from young British talent like FKA twigs, Sam Smith, MNEK, and Charli XCX have garnered critical praise and offered new blueprints for what pop stardom can look like, defying genre, era, and other formalities. Grime has more mainstream visibility than ever before, with veterans like Skepta crossing over into new international audiences and newcomers probing the sound’s outer limits, and young-gun garage revivalists like Disclosure and Duke Dumont introducing a new generation to house music. And that’s just skimming the surface.
We’ve rounded up 10 artists who are helping to redefine the sound and experience of British music today. Some of them are household names, others are still on the verge of their big break, but all of them are helping to set trends on a local and global scale.