We find it almost impossible to believe that we are coming to the end of another year. This one seems to have gotten away from us all too fast and now we get set for the arrival of 2014. As we look back at this rather fast paced year, it is also time to look at some of music’s strongest as part of our Best of 2013 issue. You can already get a small glimpse of that success simply by looking at the charts in this issue. Artists and bands that made the proper choices early on seem to find a continued presence on many of our charts. Again it is important to note that artists with a plan can truly make things happen.

There new some acts that came into frame this year bringing new sounds and great songs and that made for some rather exciting times. The American Authors come to mind as a shining musical light. The act brought us an instant anthem in “Best Day Of My Life” (Island) that is already being covered on many television shows, and that also seems to be where the real money is these days. Imagine Dragons continued to amaze us with more hits in the early stage of their career. Their latest hit in “Demons” became a real powerhouse and there will be no doubt much to come from them in the near future.

A Great Big World made quite an entrance as well. Their debut single “Say Something” (Epic/Sony) is also fast becoming one of the biggest songs as we close out the year. As of late its already been covered by artists from The Voice to X Factor, a sign that a huge instant hit has been created. Country produced a number of great new artists with instant top charting hits. The first one that comes to mind is Thomas Rhett who hit the charts with some major support from Country radio. Charlie Worsham came out to instant fan fair and seems to be on his way to great things. Of course we have to give some kudos to Tyler Farr who’s “Redneck Crazy” fast became an instant anthem moving to #1 in what seemed to be record time.

It was also a huge year for independent artists and bands as well. Too many to mention in this column, a good many of them you will still find on the many charts here in this issue. Some have taken the time to ask for your support for our up and coming New Music Awards and why not? The process for this is pretty simple so we’ll try to explain it to you once again. On our website there is a link that allows for industry, fans and friends to list potential nominees for this year’s awards in multi-categories. Simply go there and you can help start the process. Over this coming holiday, all of those votes will be tabulated along with a special poll that will be taken from our stations and their music directors. The final outcome will be revealed in our very first issue back from vacation.

There are still a lot of great new holiday songs to pay some attention to as well. Once again you will find a good many of them from both the majors and the independent record labels. As we noted in our last column, the great part about getting a Christmas song started is that it may enter many programmers holiday library’s and stay there for years to come. Please support many of these artists and keep them on your list as there are some gems out there that are deserving of your continued support.

New Music Weekly will continue to offer artists, bands and record labels the music “tools of the trade”. From our weekly charts powered by STS, our printed and online music issues to our Future Hits compilations, NMW will continue to bring you all the things you need to assist you at radio. All of us want to wish you a very Merry Christmas and a prosperous and happy New Year. We’ll see you bright and early in 2014.