Below, you can find all 10 of Your Favourites in the month of July; my recommendations that you read the most. I appreciate you, dear readers, for not only liking the usual crop of British and American artists, but music from all over the world. Of course, most songs are in English, but I’m glad to also spot lyrics in French, Swedish and even a Belgian regional accent in your Top 10. And just below, at #11, La Oreja De Van Gogh appear, with their track Te Pareces Tanto A Mí, in Spanish.

The links below bring you directly to the original posts. Each of them features a player that lets you listen to the track via the platform of your choice. Enjoy!

1. Dopha – The Game
2. Esteban – Suburban Paradise
3. Liela Moss – Atoms At Me
4. Fixkes – Dardennen
5. Shanguy – Toukassé ^(WC)
6. Raye – Natalie Don’t
7. Roads To Roam – Firework
8. Håkan Hellström – Alla Drömmar Är Uppfyllda ^(WC)
9. Grace Farriss – All The People ^(WC)
10. Lola Le Lann – Portofino

^(WC) = former Carte Blanche Music Wildcard

Werner Schlosser

Music industry watcher and journalist. Worked at a CD club, a record store chain and was editor in chief of an entertainment trade magazine. Has been in the radio business since 1987, producing and presenting shows. Was music director of several stations. Also, he developed the European Border Breakers Chart, Music Moves Europe Talent Chart and ESNS Chart.

www.carteblanchemusic.nl

Below, you can find all 10 of Your Favourites in the month of June; my recommendations that you read the most. The links bring you directly to the original posts. Each of them features a player that lets you listen to the track via the platform of your choice. Enjoy!

1. Shanguy – Toukassé ^(WC)
2. Dopha – The Game
3. Fixkes – Dardennen
4. Lola Le Lann – Portofino
5. Saint Motel – A Good Song Never Dies
6. Baxtr – Bloom ^(WC)
7. Håkan Hellström – Alla Drömmar Är Uppfyllda ^(WC)
8. Rhea – Under My Skin
9. Tones & I – Ur So F**king Cool
10. Josephien – Talk To Me

^(WC) = former Carte Blanche Music Wildcard

Werner Schlosser

Music industry watcher and journalist. Worked at a CD club, a record store chain and was editor in chief of an entertainment trade magazine. Has been in the radio business since 1987, producing and presenting shows. Was music director of several stations. Also, he developed the European Border Breakers Chart, Music Moves Europe Talent Chart and ESNS Chart.

www.carteblanchemusic.nl

In another good year for new music, I already collected over 450 great new tunes for you in my 2020 Spotify-playlist. If you generally like what you read and hear here, you can trust these to be the 450 best new songs of the year so far. Together, they form a great listening experience, stretching over 26,5 hours. But prepare for a trip through a varied musical landscape. Carte Blanche Music encourages you to listen to a wide range of genres, both inside and outside your comfort zone. For you know: the best experiences start where your comfort zone ends 😉

On behalf of this blog, I select the best of the adds to my Spotify playlist, and write a recommendation for them. Last month, like every month, I recommended 10 new songs per week; 2 per working day. The ones that reached most viewers come together in the monthly Your Favourites chart. On the 1^st of June, obviously, I look back upon Your Favourites in May.

I love it that Shanguy’s 14-month-old former Wildcard Toukassé is still at #2 in your chart. In fact, ever since entering your Top 10 in March 2019, it has only left the ranking for 1 month. This kind of achievements give a whole new dimension to the term ‘hit’. The Italian/French act was beaten to the #1 position with the smallest of margins. This month, the top position is for The Rifles frontman Joel Stoker, whose ‘isolation version’ of the aptly titled Stuck Inside was my most popular recommendation among Carte Blanche Music readers. Rat Boy’s equally aptly titled Brave New World completes the Top 3.

Below, you can find all 10 of Your Favourites in the month of May. The links bring you directly to the original recommendations. Each of them features a player that lets you listen to the track via the platform of your choice. I like to make things easy for you 😉. Be my guest and click around. Enjoy!

1. Joel Stoker (The Rifles) – Stuck Inside
2. Shanguy – Toukassé ^(WC)
3. Rat Boy – Brave New World
4. Daði Freyr & Gagnamagnið – Think About Things
5. Razorlight – Burn, Camden, Burn
6. Be Charlotte – Lights Off
7. Saint Motel – A Good Song Never Dies
8. Videoclub – Enfance 80
9. Nana Adjoa – She’s Stronger
10. The Calicos – Nova

^(WC) = former Carte Blanche Music Wildcard

Werner Schlosser

Music industry watcher and journalist. Worked at a CD club, a record store chain and was editor in chief of an entertainment trade magazine. Has been in the radio business since 1987, producing and presenting shows. Was music director of several stations. Also, he developed the European Border Breakers Chart, Music Moves Europe Talent Chart and ESNS Chart.

www.carteblanchemusic.nl

Another month has passed, and what a month it was… Well, it was the month of April, obviously, and it was a very busy one. It strikes me that the number of new releases has exploded during the pandemic. And If I may be honest: a lot of it doesn’t meet the Carte Blanche Music standards. Sometimes, I’d like to yell: “It’s not enough to have the time and the means to make a recording. For a decent song, you need talent as well!” In other words: I listen to a lot more songs lately, only to end up with the ten good ones a week that I’d really like to recommend you. But hey, I happen to love listening to new music and making the best selection possible for you guys, so I’m not complaining!

Still, there’s much more great new music than I can write about. Check (and follow) my 2020 Spotify-playlist for the rest of the best. I update it constantly, so you’ll find it there first.

So, which of my recommendations were most popular in April? As you may know by now, I write about artists for all over the world, not sticking to the countries that provide most of today’s popular music, the US and the UK. I’m very glad to see that reflected in the articles that you liked best in the past month. France (Shanguy), Iceland (Daði Freyr), Belgium (Tout Va Bien), Canada (Roquemore) and even my own tiny Netherlands (Inge van Calkar) are represented amongst Your Favourites. That makes me proud.

Below, you can find the full Top 10. Your Top 10. Are there entries you didn’t know yet? Just click the link to go to my recommendation directly and listen why others liked it so much. Allow yourself to be amazed!

1. Shanguy – Toukassé ^(WC)
2. The Magic Gang – What Have You Got To Lose
3. Daði Freyr & Gagnamagnið – Think About Things
4. Tout Va Bien – This Is How We Say Goodbye
5. Lilly Hiatt – Brightest Star
6. Roquemore – Blame ^(WC)
7. Rat Boy – Brave New World
8. Gotts Street Park feat. Flikka – Favourite Kind Of Girl
9. Inge van Calkar – Spinning Around
10. Child Of The Parish – Relic Of The Past

^(WC) = former Carte Blanche Music Wildcard

Werner Schlosser

Music industry watcher and journalist. Worked at a CD club, a record store chain and was editor in chief of an entertainment trade magazine. Has been in the radio business since 1987, producing and presenting shows. Was music director of several stations. Also, he developed the European Border Breakers Chart, Music Moves Europe Talent Chart and ESNS Chart.

www.carteblanchemusic.nl

These may be bizarre times, but people still find comfort in listening to music. Many people cling to the songs they already knew, but Carte Blanche Music visitors are apparently still searching for new music. Dûh… there’s nothing else to find here 😉. I can imagine that, especially in times like these, when you have other things on your mind to worry about, it’s nice to be able to turn to a place where the ‘dirty’ work has already been done. Where someone has already ploughed through all of the new releases (and the numbers seem to rise every week).

Carte Blanche Music loves to be that place. I update my Spotify-playlist with the best new music constantly. I already holds nearly 300 tracks, all of them released in 2020. Twice a day I recommend one of those songs here on my blog. And then, of course, it’s up to you to decide which of these recommendations you’ll read and to which of those tunes you’ll listen.

Below, you’ll find the full Top 10 of your favourite blog posts in March. A wide variety of artists in all kinds of genres and from all over the world. There’s so much great music you didn’t already know! Sometimes on your doorstep, sometimes at the other end of the world. But always here, at Carte Blanche Music. Feel free to come back any time you like, as often as you want. You don’t need to go outside and it’s open 24/7.

If you like what you hear below, following my Spotify playlist might be a good idea. Free of charge. You’re welcome!

1. The Magic Gang – What Have You Got To Lose
2. Daði Freyr & Gagnamagnið – Think About Things
3. Shanguy – Toukassé ^(WC)
4. The Jaded Hearts Club – Nobody But Me
5. Child Of The Parish – Relic Of The Past
6. Shingai – Coming Home
7. The Snuts – Coffee And Cigarettes
8. Lime – Surf N Turf
9. Merci, Mercy – Fucked Myself Up
10. Videoclub – En Nuit ^(WC)

^(WC) = former Carte Blanche Music Wildcard

Werner Schlosser

Music industry watcher and journalist. Worked at a CD club, a record store chain and was editor in chief of an entertainment trade magazine. Has been in the radio business since 1987, producing and presenting shows. Was music director of several stations. Also, he developed the European Border Breakers Chart, Music Moves Europe Talent Chart and ESNS Chart.

www.carteblanchemusic.nl

Last month, an incredible (probably unprecedented) amount of new music came to the market. After trying to listen to as much of it as possible, making choices proved more difficult than ever. This means of course that the quality of the submissions was high, which can only be a good thing.

Meteorologically, February was a month that saw several storms raging over Europe, causing considerable damage. Isn’t it appropriate, then, that the two most read recommendations on Carte Blanche Music were Perfect Storm by IBA and Toukassé (‘ruin it all’) by Shanguy? 😉
The Belgian Perfect Storm performer even had another track among your favourites of the month: his debut single Table Of Fools returned to the Top 10. The chart hosts even more ‘fools’, courtesy of IBE’s fellow-countrymen Neo Minor. Apparently, craziness was something of a theme in February, as Mad With The Moon by Lux Lyall was liked a lot as well.

Your full Top 10 of favourite blog posts in February is below. For an overview of the latest and greatest new music, check my 2020 container playlist Carte Blanche Music. It contains well over 200 pieces of damn fine music, good for over 12 hours of listening pleasure. Have a listen and/or follow it through this link.

1. IBE – Perfect Storm
2. Shanguy – Toukassé ^(WC)
3. League Of Wolves – On The Run
4. Lux Lyall – Mad With The Moon
5. James Blonde – Hundred Bucks
6. Jesse Merineau – Honey
7. Neo Minor – Fools
8. IBE Table Of Fools
9. Charmless i – Superhero
10. Dagny – Come Over

^(WC) = former Carte Blanche Music Wildcard

Werner Schlosser

Music industry watcher and journalist. Worked at a CD club, a record store chain and was editor in chief of an entertainment trade magazine. Has been in the radio business since 1987, producing and presenting shows. Was music director of several stations. Also, he developed the European Border Breakers Chart, Music Moves Europe Talent Chart and ESNS Chart.

www.carteblanchemusic.nl

As you may have seen in the listing of most read Carte Blanche Music posts of the past year, Your Favourites (2019), Roi by Videoclub was the most popular of my recommendations. And it was by far the most popular. In fact, every single month of 2019, this was the most visited page on the whole blog. And all of that via organic searches, there was no strange activity (like bots) to be found. So, in short: this was a real hit, no holds barred. And it still is, actually, for also in January 2020, a year after publication, this is still the song that attracts the most visitors. Incredible! Yet, I’ve decided not to list it in these monthly charts anymore, in order to give another track the chance to show up.

For the same reason, I left another very popular post out of this Top 10: an article with photos of the best performances I saw on the ESNS showcase festival, halfway January. Just so you know…

That still leaves us with a very interesting listing of Your Favourites in the last month, with a surprising #1: Every One Of Us by Rick Astley was particularly popular just after the singer appeared live at Jools Holland’s Annual Hootenanny. He didn’t even sing this new track, by the way, but apparently the performance made people curious for it. Which is great, obviously. The only other ‘80s icons among my most popular tips are the Pet Shop Boys, whose latest Daft Punk-like single Monkey Business ends third.

Jaguar Jonze and Eliza & The Delusionals, who both have great new singles out, also feature in the Top 5. And at #9, surprise surprise, Videoclub still show up, with their follow-up to Roi, the former Carte Blanche Music Wildcard En Nuit.

Your full Top 10 of favourite blog posts in January is below. For an overview of the latest and greatest new music, check my 2020 container playlist Carte Blanche Music. Only one month into the new year, it already holds almost 120 tracks, good for over 7 hours of recent tracks. Have a listen and/or follow it through this link.

1. Rick Astley – Every One Of Us
2. Shanguy – Toukassé ^(WC)
3. Pet Shop Boys – Monkey Business
4. Jaguar Jonze – Kill Me With Your Love
5. Eliza & The Delusionals – Just Exist
6. Friedberg – Go Wild
7. Sarpa Salpa – Say Something
8. Mute Choir – Shadowboxing
9. Videoclub – En Nuit ^(WC)
10. Rat Boy – Victim Of A System

^(WC) = former Carte Blanche Music Wildcard

Werner Schlosser

Music industry watcher and journalist. Worked at a CD club, a record store chain and was editor in chief of an entertainment trade magazine. Has been in the radio business since 1987, producing and presenting shows. Was music director of several stations. Also, he developed the European Border Breakers Chart, Music Moves Europe Talent Chart and ESNS Chart.

www.carteblanchemusic.nl

For new music lovers, showcase festival ESNS in the Dutch city of Groningen is a must. The 2020 edition has just finished. In four days’ time, 350 upcoming acts from all over Europe played for crowds existing of industry professionals, journalists and music lovers. Besides the official programme, there were numerous parallel programmes, hosting hundreds of other emerging artists. Below you’ll find pictures of some of the most recommended acts I visited at ESNS 2020, in alphabetical order!

Friedberg (AT)

Veronica Fusaro (CH)

Georgia (GB)

The Howl & The Hum (GB)

Josephien (BE)

Jules (NL)

Moonradio (NL)

The Snuts (GB)

Werner Schlosser

Music industry watcher and journalist. Worked at a CD club, a record store chain and was editor in chief of an entertainment trade magazine. Has been in the radio business since 1987, producing and presenting shows. Was music director of several stations. Also, he developed the European Border Breakers Chart, Music Moves Europe Talent Chart and ESNS Chart.

www.carteblanchemusic.nl