NESS

And it seems she's doing everything right because in the first few months of her young career, she has already accumulated over 10 million plays on streaming platforms and enjoyed numerous radio airplays. Since her nomination for the Amadeus Award as "Songwriter of the Year," the likable pop singer and songwriter has become one of Austria's biggest pop hopes.

In her music, NESS confronts her struggles: mental health issues, body image, societal norms, and her experiences as a queer person in a truly complicated world, she deals with openly, allowing listeners to immediately empathize with her world and feel understood with what preoccupies them:

"I want to name things people don't like to talk about and fight my own battles in this way," she explains. You can hear how important honesty, vulnerability, and exploring one's own emotional depth are in every single song, making NESS an authentic, relatable artist that many teens and twentysomethings can identify with. Because in pop, everything usually seems light, sweet, and superficial - business as usual. Not here, not with NESS. Her honesty is like an arrow that strikes deep, something rarely found in the current music industry.

This also includes NESS openly appearing as a queer person and wanting to be a role model and figure of identification for other queer kids. A role model she sorely missed in her own childhood: There were people like Miley Cyrus as a musical role model and Billie Eilish, who became a beacon for NESS with her androgynous clothing style - she herself was the only girl at her school who didn't wear gender-conforming clothes and wasn't always accepted for it. But there weren't any real queer kids in NESS' environment - she wants to change that. And NESS doesn't care if she could be put into a box. "Of course, I don't want to be reduced to just my queerness. But I find representation so important. And that's why I will always make my personal story a topic."