Chelsea Wood is an artist manager who has worked in the industry for over a decade. Currently at boutique management company VDM Music, she represents the likes of Nina Nesbitt, Grammy Award winner Foxes and also heads up their in-house record label Truth Records. She's previously worked with music legends Andy Taylor (Duran Duran), and classical Brit Award winner Tolga Kashif.

Chelsea supports young women looking for their start in the music industry by offering mentorship with Girl & Repertoire. She has also offered artists advice with her feature on the Burstimo podcast 'breaking an artist to 4 million monthly listeners'. Her work is often acknowledged in Music Week and Women In Music.

Here's our recent chat with Chelsea to discuss her favourite recent campaigns and talk about the overlaps between visual creativity and music.

I’m currently working on the next Nina Nesbitt record, which is going to be killer! I've been working with Nina for 4 years now, we put our blood, sweat and literal tears into the last record and I loved every minute of it. The last record went on to surpass over half a billion streams so I'm looking forward to making the next album an even bigger success!

I'M LOVING

Creatively at the moment I’m loving Ashnikko! She's really standing out from the crowd with both her music and her visuals. We're living in a time where people are loving artists who know exactly who they are and aren't afraid to shout about it, and that's exactly what she does.

FAVOURITE VIDEO

My all-time favourite music video is Weapon of Choice by Fatboy Slim. Its a genius music video! It really proves that great content can elevate the strength of the music if you get it right.

BEST ARTWORK

I’ve always loved the album art for Oasis Definitely Maybe. Any artwork should highlight the artists brand and appeal to their listeners. Even if you removed the text from this artwork you'd know who the band are because the branding is on point.

FRESHEST CAMPAIGN

The best creative campaign of the past year has been Yungblud with his album Weird! I think it's pretty obvious by now that I'm really into artists that stand out, and Yungblud is the king right now. He dropped his album at a time when rock music wasn't at the forefront of any charts, but the strength of the music and his brand cut through. I love how he created everything with his fans in mind, and how he touched on the topical issue of it being okay to be exactly who you are. Lots of clever campaigning that felt very real to me.

BEST COLLABORATION

The most recent brand collab that caught my eye was the Disney team up with the likes of Ariana Grande, Beyonce and Demi Lovato. Mainly because we all needed a boost in lockdown! Despite 2020 likely being one of the hardest years we've all lived through, it was also a pleasure to see those with a platform giving back online. And who doesn't love a good Disney tune?!

VIDEO OF THE YEAR 

For me the most creative and original music video of the past year has been Obey by Bring Me The Horizon & Yungblud. I actually loved seeing people get creative with videos last year. Everyone had to think outside of the box regardless of their budget as most filming was restricted to minimal crew. They made something socially distanced whilst still retaining a storyline that kept you wanting to watch until the end.

LOGO LOVE

The artist logo I wish I’d designed has got to the iconic Red Hot Chilli Peppers logo!

GO FOLLOW

The one artist you should follow on Instagram is July Jones. I'm always a fan of the up and comers on socials. I really like that right now, she's got a distinct look that she delivers to her socials really well. It's also a mix of her music and other interests too. The best musicians are varying their content whilst still keeping it on brand.

ICONIC

The most iconic music photograph for me, has to be the first-ever shots of the Pyramid stage at Glastonbury in 1970 (wasn't even called Glastonbury back then!). It's so strange to see so few people standing at the iconic stage! Nowadays, we're used to seeing this stage covered in thousands upon thousands of people, and it's a good reminder that all things once start out small.

Creative Corner, in association with The MMF