Hey Pandas, Who Is An Extremely Underrated Music Artist You Think More People Should Listen To? (Closed)

If you hang out online long enough, you’ll notice that music fans love two things: endlessly replaying the same song and passionately insisting that the rest of the world is sleeping on their favorite underrated artist. That was exactly the energy behind the “Hey Pandas, who is an extremely underrated music artist you think more people should listen to?” question.

The thread might be closed now, but the debate it sparked never really ends. Hidden-gem artists live in every playlist, dusty CD binder, and long-forgotten YouTube tab. This article is a celebration of those musicians who don’t always dominate the charts, but absolutely dominate our hearts, headphones, and shower-concert set lists.

What Does “Underrated” Even Mean in 2025?

Before we start throwing names around like confetti at a festival, it’s worth asking: what do we actually mean by “underrated”?

Being underrated usually isn’t about talent. Often, these artists have serious skills, passionate fans, and strong critical respect. What they’re missing is visibility. Maybe they were ahead of their time. Maybe their label dropped the ball on promotion. Maybe the algorithm simply decided, “Nah, not today.”

In the streaming era, attention is fragmented. A musician can have a fiercely loyal fanbase, sell out 2,000-cap venues, and still be unknown to your group chat. At the same time, critics and history books sometimes catch up years later, retroactively declaring a band or singer “essential” after they quietly influenced an entire generation of artists.

Signs an Artist Might Be Underrated

• Their songs keep popping up as “influences” in interviews, but almost no one you know actually listens to them.
• Music nerds talk about them the way foodies talk about underground restaurants.
• They have one big song, but their deeper catalog is where the real magic hides.
• Other musicians rave about them, but the average listener has never heard the name.

In other words, being underrated is less about numbers and more about a weird imbalance between impact and recognition.

Why We’re Obsessed With Underrated Artists

There’s something intensely personal about loving someone who isn’t a household name. When you find an underrated artist, it can feel like stumbling onto a secret back room of the internet where only the “in the know” people hang out.

Sharing those artists in a community like Bored Panda turns solo discoveries into shared joy. One person posts about a forgotten 1970s power-pop band; another raves about a jazz pianist who should be winning every award; someone else arrives with a bedroom pop artist whose monthly listeners could comfortably fit inside a small town.

Suddenly, a comment thread becomes a living playlist, curated by real people rather than by an algorithm trying to guess your mood based on how long you hovered over a lo-fi beats cover image.

Classic Examples of Underrated Greatness

While every fan has their own list of underrated favorites, certain names come up again and again when people argue about musicians who deserved more love.

The Pioneers History Almost Forgot

Music history has a bad habit of turning pioneers into footnotes. Take the often-celebrated but still not universally known figures behind rock, soul, and other genres. These are the artists whose riffs, vocal styles, or production tricks quietly re-shaped entire genres while other names grabbed the headlines.

Guitar-wielding innovators in early rock, unsung songwriters in Motown-style factories, and jazz musicians who later become “musicians’ musicians” often land high on underrated lists. Their fingerprints are everywhere, even when their names aren’t.

The Cult Bands That Critics Love and Radio Ignores

Then there are the cult bandsgroups whose albums were adored by critics but sabotaged by bad timing, messy label politics, or unfortunate distribution. These bands often sold modest numbers in their own era but later became essential listening for music heads.

One famous example is a 1970s power-pop band whose records struggled commercially because their label couldn’t get the albums into enough stores. Critics praised them, other musicians adored them, and future artists would cite them as a blueprint for jangly, melodic rock. But mainstream fame just never quite showed up on time.

Today, those albums are treated like sacred texts among rock nerds. Meanwhile, casual listeners are still saying, “Wait, how have I never heard of these guys?”

The Innovators Trapped Behind Industry Red Tape

Business realities can also keep a group underrated. Maybe their catalog is tangled in rights issues, sample clearances, or label disputes. For years, a legendary hip-hop group’s early works were notoriously hard to find on legal streaming platforms because their sample-heavy albums required painstaking clearance work decades later.

Once those albums finally appeared on streaming services, a whole new generation discovered tracks that longtime fans had called classics for years. The music hadn’t changed, but the access hadand with it, the perception of how “big” the group really was.

The Genre Misfits

Some musicians seem underrated purely because they don’t fit into one neatly marketable box. Maybe they’re too jazzy for pop radio, too melodic for metal fans, or too experimental for people who just wanted something to play at a barbecue.

These artists often build strong, dedicated communities online and on tour. Still, because they defy easy categorization, they rarely get the sort of broad marketing push that turns “who?” into “oh yeah, I know them.”

Modern Hidden Gems: A Few Types of Underrated Artists

Rather than building yet another ranked list (the internet has plenty of those), let’s look at the kinds of underrated artists fans kept bringing up in the “Hey Pandas” conversation.

1. The Genre-Blenders

Many underrated artists live at the crossroads of multiple styles. Think of singers who blend R&B with electronic textures, indie bands that sneak jazz harmonies into pop hooks, or producers who treat the studio like a science lab.

Pop and indie blogs frequently highlight such musicians on “underrated” or “hidden gem” listsartists who write radio-worthy melodies but wrap them in unusual production choices or unexpected chord changes. The result: songs that feel familiar on the surface but reward deeper listening.

2. The Global Voices

Another group of underrated artists are those who sing primarily in languages other than English. They might be superstars in one region but relatively unknown elsewhere. A Spanish-language jazz-soul singer, for example, might be critically acclaimed and compared to legendary jazz vocalists, yet not widely known among English-speaking audiences simply because most people never stumble onto her work.

When fans do find their way to these artistsoften via recommendations, playlists, or live clips shared on social mediathere’s a recurring reaction: “How have I never heard of this person before?”

3. The Vocal Powerhouses Hiding in Niche Scenes

Metal, prog, and certain rock subgenres are stuffed with singers who could absolutely hold their own next to mainstream megastars, but operate mostly inside tight-knit fan communities. A towering symphonic metal vocalist, for instance, might be a legend to fans of heavy music and virtually invisible to anyone who only listens to Top 40 radio.

Vocal coaches, reaction channels, and music educators often spotlight these singers in their own “underrated” videos and posts. Once you fall down that rabbit hole, it’s hard to go back to thinking impressive range is rare.

4. The Bands Overshadowed by Their Scene

In every big music wave, a few names become the symbols of an era, while others get quietly pushed into the background. Grunge had its superstars, but some equally compelling bands from the same scene never broke through in the same way. Classic rock and prog had giants, but plenty of equally creative groups were overshadowed despite ambitious albums and dedicated fans.

Years later, critics and listeners often revisit those catalogs and say, “Wait… how was this not huge?” That delayed appreciation is basically the textbook definition of “underrated.”

How to Discover Your Own Underrated Favorites

Even though the original “Hey Pandas” thread is closed, you can easily recreate the spirit of that conversation in your own music life. Here are a few friendly strategies.

Dig Beyond the Algorithm

Streaming platforms are convenient, but they are also creatures of habit. If you only ever hit “Recommended for you,” you’ll mostly get polished, safe options that resemble what you already play.

To find underrated artists, go rogue:

• Follow playlists curated by real humansmusic writers, small labels, community radio DJs, or friends whose taste you trust.
• Check out the “fans also like” section on an artist’s page and intentionally click on a name you’ve never heard before.
• Use genre and mood filters, then scroll way past the obvious names to see who’s hiding in the middle of the list.

Hang Out Where Music Nerds Gather

Places like fan forums, subreddit threads about “underrated artists,” music Discord servers, and comment sections under long-form music essays are absolute gold mines. People there are eager to share their favorite obscure bands, defend the artists they feel are unfairly ignored, and trade playlists like secret recipes.

Look for posts titled things like “criminally underrated albums,” “bands that should have been huge,” or “hidden gem songs to obsess over.” You’ll come away with more new artists than you can fit into one commute.

Follow the Influence Trail

When a musician you love mentions their influences in an interview, treat that like a treasure map. Start listening to those older records or smaller artists they name-drop. You’ll discover how a sound evolves over time and where certain stylistic ideas came from.

Sometimes the person who inspired your favorite artist is far less famous, even though they arguably changed the musical landscape more.

Support the Underrated in Real Life

One of the biggest reasons artists remain underrated is lack of support from gatekeepers. You might not control radio stations or awards shows, but you do have more power than you think.

• Buy digital albums or merch instead of only streaming.
• Show up to small venue gigs and tell your friends to come along.
• Add their songs to your own playlists and share those playlists publicly.
• Post about them on social media instead of only reposting whatever is trending.

Every follow, every share, every playlist slot matters more than it seems.

What the Pandas Taught Us About Taste

The beauty of a question like “Who is an extremely underrated music artist you think more people should listen to?” is that there is no wrong answer. For one person, it might be a 1950s gospel-rock trailblazer who never got her full due in the mainstream. For another, it’s a small indie-pop act that helped them survive a difficult year.

Scrolling through the kinds of answers people gave, a few patterns emerge:

• People love recommending artists who feel emotionally important to them, even if they aren’t historically famous.
• Different generations have totally different definitions of “underrated.” A parent might name a classic rock band; their kid might name a bedroom producer on a micro label.
• Genre boundaries pretty much evaporate when people talk about underrated music. Folk fans recommend rappers, metalheads recommend film-score composers, and pop lovers shout out jazz vocalists.

Underneath all of it is a simple, wholesome desire: we want the artists who sound special to us to feel appreciated. We want them to stick around, keep creating, and maybe get a little more love than the numbers on their profiles currently show.

500 Extra Words of Real-Life Experience With Underrated Artists

Let’s zoom in on the human side of this for a momentwhat it actually feels like to discover and share an underrated artist.

Maybe it starts late at night when you’re half-asleep, letting autoplay run on your favorite streaming platform. Suddenly a song drifts in that doesn’t quite sound like anything else. The voice is raw but controlled, the lyrics oddly specific, the production a little rough around the edges in a way that feels… honest. You look down at your phone and see a name you’ve never heard before, with monthly listeners that look more like a small town than a global fanbase.

You replay the track. Then again. And again. Before you know it, this anonymous-looking artist has a reserved spot in your brain right next to the big stars. The next day, you try to talk about them and are met with blank stares. That’s the instant you realize: “Oh. They’re underrated. It’s my job now.”

From there, you become a one-person marketing department. You send the song to your best friend with a message like, “You need this in your life right now.” You sneak it into group playlists, hoping someone will notice and ask, “Hey, what was track five?” Maybe you buy a t-shirt from their online store, not because you need another black band tee, but because you secretly like the idea that your twenty bucks might be the difference between them buying groceries or not.

If you’re lucky, there’s a moment when it pays off. A year later, you see the artist’s name pop up on a festival lineup. Their streaming numbers have grown. A music publication runs a feature calling them “one of the most exciting rising voices” in their genre. You feel irrationally proudlike you discovered them personally, even though you absolutely did not. You were just early.

Sometimes, the opposite happens: your underrated favorite never really “blows up” in the traditional sense. They release a few brilliant EPs, play some small tours, and then quietly move on to something else. That can be bittersweet, but it doesn’t erase the impact their music had on you.

Maybe their songs got you through a breakup, a boring summer job, or a long commute. Maybe you made friends because someone noticed the obscure sticker on your laptop and said, “Wait, you know them too?” The artist might remain underrated in the cultural sense, but in your personal story, they’re absolutely A-list.

That’s the heart of the “Hey Pandas” question: it’s less about building a definitive ranking of overlooked geniuses and more about sharing those intensely personal connections. When you answer with the name of an underrated artist, what you’re really saying is, “This music made my life better. I think it might do the same for you.”

Even though the original thread is closed, the spirit of it doesn’t have to be. You can recreate it every time you hit play on a song you love and ask a friend, “Have you heard this yet?” The world might never fully catch up to all the underrated artists out therebut as long as we keep sharing them, they’ll never truly be unheard.