Rhian Daly

Rhian Daly is a music editor at NME and a freelance music journalist whose work centres on contemporary pop, indie and alternative artists, with a focus on emotionally detailed stories about new voices and the scenes around them. She has over ten years of experience interviewing high-profile pop stars and rising musicians, bringing a consistent emphasis on how records, tours and festivals feel for the artists involved. Her coverage combines in-depth interviews, festival features, and sharp reviews of albums and music films, giving readers both discovery and context across modern music.

Interviews with emerging artists and pop voices

Daly’s most distinctive work lies in artist-focused interviews that track how new musicians are navigating early career milestones. In her NME Radar-style conversation with Baby Queen, she explores how the artist’s small but solid catalogue tackles subjects such as mental health, the effects of antidepressants and social media’s grip on body image and self-esteem, treating pop songs as vehicles for serious themes rather than background noise. Her profiles typically balance career facts with the emotional texture of what an artist is going through, framing their releases and live shows in terms of the pressures, hopes and risks that come with sudden attention.

She also spends time with artists at inflection points. A recent feature on Rachel Chinouriri follows the British indie artist through BRIT Award nominations, a sold-out hometown show at London’s Kentish Town Forum and a high-profile support slot on Sabrina Carpenter’s arena tour, capturing how professional breakthroughs spill over into personal life and confidence. Across these pieces, Daly foregrounds quotes and narrative detail, showing how musicians articulate their own stories and how those stories sit within today’s pop and indie landscape. This approach runs through her interviews with artists around debut releases and early tours, where she is less concerned with hype than with what the work and its reception feel like from the inside.

Festival coverage and Glastonbury stories

Daly is heavily involved in NME’s festival reporting, particularly around Glastonbury, where she covers both line-up news and on-the-ground narratives. Her work includes a breakdown of the Glastonbury 2024 line-up, situating artists within the broader shape of the bill and signalling which performances will define the weekend for different fan communities. She then follows through with features from the festival itself, interviewing artists about what playing its stages means to them.

In a Glastonbury piece with Japanese Breakfast, she frames the band’s set as “hard won,” focusing on the years of work behind finally reaching the festival and how that moment lands for Michelle Zauner. A companion feature on The Maccabees’ reunion at Glastonbury 2025 similarly homes in on the emotional weight of getting back on stage, using the band’s reflections on split-second decisions and shared history to explain why the show matters beyond nostalgia. Together, these articles show Daly’s habit of treating major festival appearances as chapters in an artist’s story rather than as isolated gigs, and they position her as a key voice in coverage of how live events shape contemporary music culture.

Reviews and critical coverage

Alongside interviews and features, Daly maintains a strong presence as a critic, writing reviews that balance accessible language with clear judgments about what works and what does not. Her album review of Geese’s ‘Getting Killed’ situates the record within a broader indie context, referencing other artists such as Alex G, Blondshell, Hannah Jadagu and Ravyn Lenae as part of a curated “Lately NME” selection, which helps readers understand where the band sits in the current guitar-driven landscape. In film and documentary criticism, her review of ‘BTS: The Return’ highlights the project as an illuminating fly-on-the-wall look at the group’s big comeback, emphasising how the documentary captures the dynamics of a globally dominant K-pop act finding its footing again.

Her background includes work as an assistant reviews editor at NME, which adds editorial experience to her current critical voice and underpins the consistency of her assessments. Beyond NME, she writes for other music publications such as The Forty-Five, where she is described as a freelance music journalist with over a decade of interviewing experience and a track record of speaking to some of the world’s most famous pop stars. She also contributes recommendation pieces, including tastemaker selections that spotlight artists like Stella Donnelly and releases such as ‘Thrush Metal’, again prioritising discovery and careful listening over trend-chasing. Across outlets, her reviews and picks reflect a clear set of interests: lyrically thoughtful songwriting, emerging talent in pop and indie, and projects that carry emotional or social weight.

Beat focus and working style

Daly’s beat is contemporary music, but her work narrows that broad area into recurring themes that distinguish her coverage from more generic reporting. She returns frequently to artists early in their careers, whether in indie rock, alt-pop or K-pop, and documents how they address mental health, identity, relationships and online life in their work. Festival features and Glastonbury stories show her interest in how live performance careers are built and how headline events function as turning points for artists rather than simple bookings. Reviews and tastemaker pieces highlight her trust in her own ear and her willingness to champion records that might sit just outside the centre of mainstream attention.

Across these formats, Daly writes in clear, direct prose that keeps artist voices front and centre, using interviews and quotes to anchor her narratives while adding context from her knowledge of the wider music landscape. For communications teams working around new releases, tours or music films, her work signals a journalist who values substance, storytelling and emotional detail, and who covers pop and indie culture at the point where personal experience meets professional success.