Indie Artists to Listen to With Big Sky Ferreira Energy

You don’t need to listen to Sky Ferreira for very long to feel her vibrations. Just one chorus from the sultry, steamy song “Everything is Embarrassing” makes you feel like you’re in her world.

The spare, stark piano parts playing one chord per bar over the simple 80s drum machine tone are enough to create a real mood. It feels like a cabaret from another decade, yet somehow contemporary at the same time, too.

Despite Ferreira’s young age, she has already impacted the music, modeling, and acting scene for over a decade. Here are some of the younger artists who have come in her wake and embody some of Ferreira’s energy.

Lila Drew

Lila Drew is a 23-year-old LA-based musician making a name in the world of indie pop for her raw, introspective lyrics atop fun, lighter grooves. Her album All the Places I Could Be embodies this contrast.

Her music belongs on any good vibes playlist, but you might be surprised by how deep and sometimes probing the words to her music can be. Put another way, if you listened to just the lyrics, you might expect some of the sounds to be more brooding. If you heard just the music, perhaps you’d expect brighter lyrics.

Subverting expectations and doing her own thing makes Lila Drew special and makes her recall Ferreria’s energy.

Halsey

The singer known as Halsey, whose real name is Ashley Frangipane, started posting her own songs to social media sites like YouTube and Tumblr back in 2012-14. Since then, she’s toured and released multiple critically acclaimed EPs and a studio album, Badlands.

Halsey, an anagram of her name, Ashley, has gone from being inspired by Justin Bieber to performing on his song “The Feeling” on his 2015 album Purpose. She’s also a multi-talented artist who models and acts too.

Her two most recent albums, Manic (2020) and If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power (2021), contain some radio-friendly tunes, but there’s still the signature introspection, an honest and raw look inward that openly describes whatever’s there.

Halsey uses songwriting as a form of confession, so even if she isn’t the first artist to use this medium to express her rawest self, she certainly puts a unique stamp on the practice.

Robyn

If there’s any Swedish group responsible for making more people dance than Abba, it’s probably Robyn! Her 2010 jam “Dancing on My Own” can make any 2013 dancefloor come alive, and she’s put out countless bangers since and, thankfully, isn’t stopping now.

It’s hard to find a pop artist so known for her musical integrity; in the early stages of her career, Robyn eschewed fame to make her brand of pop music, with the result that fans and critics feel even more in love with her sounds.

It’s rare that an artist rejects one way to be radio-friendly, only to create her own radio-friendly path.

Like all great musicians, Sky Ferreira is her own artist, and nobody can do exactly what she does. It’s a compliment, not an insult, to group her among other talented, singular artists forging their path. If you love Ferreira’s music, hopefully, you also enjoy listening to one of the above women.