Neve Stokoe | Launching A New Track In The Middle Of A Global Pandemic As An Undiscovered Artist

Sionna
Jul 8, 2020
3 min read

Updated: Aug 29, 2020

We've probably all seen at least one or two celebrities or famous artists talking about the effects of this pandemic. From the physically awkward and patronizing Gal Gadot et al celebrity video singing 'Imagine", to the artists and celebrities doing frequent Instagram lives and posts with charities and organizations in an aim to entertain as well as help people, trying to use their privilege and platform for good. So we all kind of see how this pandemic is for a successful, well-off artist; not that hard. We've seen how some have tried to continue their art through lockdown measurements, like Charli XCX's fan-collaborative lockdown album "how I'm feeling right now", music videos with compilations, Instagram lives, Zoom call DJ sets, and the surge of Tik Tok.

But what is it like for artists who haven't been discovered yet, don't have a massive following, or a piece of work out? Neve Stokoe is a good friend of mine and a brilliant singer/songwriter. We met last September in class at uni and lived just a few roads apart. The first thing we did together out of uni was getting the bus to the city of Leeds to go to an open mic night, where I first heard her sing.

On Sunday (5th July 2020), Neve decided to go live on Facebook to sing a few songs including one she had just finished writing and hadn't played before. The set started off with Jigsaw Pieces, my favourite of her songs and one which is often stuck in my head despite not being on any streaming services, yeah it's that good. She recently recorded this song in this last year and launched an acoustic video for it with Wet Records, (watch below).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXUlFE-_B28

Her second track was her brand new song called Take What You Need, and followed with her original songs and taking requests from her live audience for cover songs. Read the following track list below.

Neve Stokoe Original Tracks:

Jigsaw Pieces

Methods Of Transport

Song For Samantha

Vodka

Entity

Live Covers:

Lana Del Rey - The Next Best American Record

Tracy Chapman - Fast Car

Lorde - 400 Lux

Lord Huron - The Night We Met

Girl In Red - I Wanna Be Your Girlfriend

Kodaline - All I Want

Aside from having a very unique, delicately soft voice, the thing that strikes me most about Neve is her songwriting, something very important in todays music industry and in upcoming solo artists. For someone who hasn't been taught or studied how to write music, she has a talent for it. Her songs have this recurring theme of story-telling, imagery, and creating suspense to emote feeling from the listener.

The music industry is changing and will keep changing because of this pandemic, and so we must learn to change with the tides and adjust. For artists with little platform this is challenging, being unable to let people see you live, but creativity often stems from troubling and challenging times. Technology and communication was already a top priority for any artist, and it is now more prevalent than ever.

You can check out Neve Stokoe's links down below including the Facebook live stream. Please make sure to like, subscribe, follow, and everything else to support her.

-Sionna