Picked to Click 2025: The Year The Picks Already Clicked

We asked nearly 100 local tastemakers to name the best up-and-coming musicians in Minnesota.

12:00 PM CST on November 19, 2025

Obi Original, Mother Soki, Mike Kota

|Photos provided

Shit happens fast these days, and that’s having interesting effects on our Picked to Click music poll.

But hold up. Before I start making grand generalizations about the Minnesota music scene, let’s get reacquainted with what Picked to Click was, is, and will be.

Once upon a time, way back in the ’90s, Jim Walsh began taking the pulse of the local music scene at City Pages with a poll of writers, musicians, bookers, club owners, DJs, and so forth. He called this poll Picked to Click, and somehow, this institution staggered on yearly until the mean ol’ Star Tribune shut CP down in 2020. (I ran the final Picked to Click just weeks before our demise.)

With the foolhardy willingness to try anything that characterizes a lot of what we do here at Racket, I resurrected Picked to Click last fall. Fortunately, people seemed into it, and the results provided that same sometimes blurry but always instructive snapshot of Minnesota music in the moment that the poll always had.

Picked to Click is a great cheat sheet for folks looking for local music to check out. But its real value lies in how it reflects changes in the local music scene over time, and it certainly picked up on some changes this year. Local musicians who were on few people’s radars when we compiled our 2024 poll now have managers and are touring nationally with label support.

Which brings us back to where I started, with shit happening fast. You don’t need me to tell you that social media plays a big role in getting music out there. Musicians can reach nationwide audiences without leaving their basements. But this year’s Picked to Click reflects that like never before.

If there’s a “Minneapolis Sound” to be gleaned from this poll, from winners Porch Light on down, it’s firmly rooted in ’90s alt-rock and its voice is female. I wouldn’t take that too literally, though. Without slighting any of our winners, I wish the list was a little more wide-ranging when it comes to genre, even if we did find space for jazz fusion and Nigerian highlife. Where’s the rap?

But such is the nature of polls, which are imperfect but useful tools. And the winners aren’t the only bands worth noticing. The individual ballots cast offer an even fuller picture of what people are listening to. Let me just take a moment to list some bands who got one fifth place vote apiece this year:

American Cream Band, Cheap Bouquet, Constant Insult, Former Crush, I Owe This Land a Body, Mommy Log Balls, Storm Coffee, Third Date, Toilet Rats, Virgo.

I’ve heard some of these bands, recognize a few names of others, and know nothing about a few. This time next year, they may have already clicked.