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<title>Top Indie/Alternative Artists on Rhapsody Online</title>
<dateCreated>Sat Dec 26 16:06:28 PST 2009</dateCreated>
<dateModified>Sat Dec 26 16:06:28 PST 2009</dateModified>
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<outline type="include" text="Modest Mouse" description="Under the close tutelage of indie rock kingpin Calvin Johnson, Modest Mouse have cultivated a twangy, folk-tinged rock sound that is nothing less than inspiring. Blending grainy, high-pitched vocals catchy guitar hooks and an aversion to traditional rock song structures, this humble threesome churn out track after track of gut-wrenching emotive romps. Not afraid to soar from melodic acoustic ballads to screeching digressions that verge on jam rock, Modest Mouse strike a balance between musical energy and expressive candor, finding an angsty, melancholic purity that eludes other indie bands." category="Indie/Alternative" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/modest-mouse/data.opml?rws=%2Falt-punk%2Findie-alternative%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="U2" description="There's no denying that U2 has become one of the most iconic, loved and, yes, important rock bands in the world. And if they're not bigger than Jesus, Bono's attempt to turn his celebrity toward the greater good -- rubbing elbows with heads of state as he tackles climate change and African debt relief -- hasn't hurt his saintly stature. With an unchanging lineup of Bono (vocals), the Edge (guitar), Adam Clayton (bass) and Larry Mullen, Jr. (drums), the Dublin-born band established itself with a string of post-punk-influenced, protest-minded albums in the early '80s. &lt;I&gt;The Joshua Tree&lt;/I&gt; (1987) and the following year's &lt;I&gt;Rattle &amp; Hum&lt;/I&gt; capped the first phase of the band's career. The '90s were U2's pop decade, as they at once embraced and undercut their mega-star status, experimenting with dance beats and multimedia theatrics. Beginning with 2000's &lt;I&gt;All That You Can't Leave Behind&lt;/I&gt;, U2 returned to their rock roots and embarked upon a &quot;mature&quot; career phase that included record-setting tour grosses and induction into the Rock &amp; Roll Hall of Fame. &lt;I&gt;No Line on the Horizon&lt;/I&gt; -- released in March 2009, 30 years after their debut EP -- suggested that the band had no intention of slowing down.
- Philip Sherburne" category="Alt/Punk" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/u2/data.opml?rws=%2Falt-punk%2Findie-alternative%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Muse" description="Growing up in the quiet English town of Devon, the three members of Muse dreamed of being in a rock band. At the tender age of 13, they did just that by forming (ahem) Gothic Plague. A few years and name changes later, the trio chose the name Muse and settled into their dramatic, Queen and Radiohead-inspired style of Brit rock. In 1997, they released a self-titled EP, followed by the &lt;I&gt;Muscle Museum&lt;/I&gt; EP a year later. &quot;Muscle Museum&quot; was highly touted in the British press and the buzz over Muse was officially on. The trio signed to Madonna's Maverick Records after playing a music industry show and released &lt;I&gt;Showbiz&lt;/I&gt; in 1999. &lt;I&gt;Origin of Symmetry&lt;/I&gt; followed in 2001 and the band enjoyed some radio success. But they weren't able to break through in the U.S. until the release of 2003's &lt;i&gt;Absolution&lt;/i&gt;, which made its way to the top of the &lt;i&gt;Billboard&lt;/i&gt; Top Heatseekers chart. Their success continued to grow with the release of 2006's bombastic &lt;i&gt;Black Holes and Revelations&lt;/i&gt; and the even more bombastic 2009's &lt;i&gt;The Resistance&lt;/i&gt;, which captures Muse at their weirdest, grandest and most ambitious.
- Linda Ryan" category="Brit Rock" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/muse/data.opml?rws=%2Falt-punk%2Findie-alternative%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="The Killers" description="What does it mean that one of the early 21st century's best British bands is actually from Las Vegas? They might not fit into a convenient theory, but the Killers haven't wasted much time since their formation in 2002: Even before their debut album, &lt;I&gt;Hot Fuss&lt;/I&gt;, appeared on Island in mid-2004, they were already selling out headlining shows in England. Named for a fictional group in a New Order video, the Killers practice a tense, stylish brand of rock in the vein of U2 and Bruce Springsteen, with lyrical left turns that recall classic Bowie. With their roots in glam and new wave, and their undeniable talent, the Killers have helped breathe fresh air into the '00s alt rock scene.
- Jaan Uhelszki" category="Post-Punk" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/the-killers/data.opml?rws=%2Falt-punk%2Findie-alternative%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Radiohead" description="One of the 1990s' greatest success stories, Radiohead came to prominence largely on the success of their distorted, ingratiating single &quot;Creep.&quot; Drolly repeating &quot;I'm a creep / I'm a loser&quot; in the pounding wake of arena rock guitars wasn't going to win them any artistic grants, but those lyrics and bouts with piercing feedback would not be soon forgotten. It wasn't until &lt;I&gt;The Bends&lt;/I&gt; (1995) that Radiohead transcended the formula, crafting the patient, heart-wrenching &quot;Fake Plastic Trees&quot; and the magnetic, sunshine-driven &quot;Black Star.&quot; Thom Yorke's signature falsetto began to operate in a more deeply emotional capacity at this point. Finally producing to the caliber of their songwriting, Radiohead's &lt;I&gt;OK Computer&lt;/I&gt; demonstrated a staggering attention to detail, probably ranking as one of the greatest commercial artistic successes of the '90s. Rarely does a record offer masterpieces in varying moods. From the thunderously suspenseful &quot;Airbag&quot; to the moody chime of the blustery &quot;Let Down,&quot; Radiohead emerged victorious. The alt-rock superstardom and critical gushing that followed pushed them into their darkest and most creative space yet, and they delivered the electronic-tinged &lt;I&gt;Kid A&lt;/I&gt; in 2000 and &lt;I&gt;Amnesiac&lt;/I&gt; in 2001. Many critics and fans claimed to not &quot;get&quot; the group's twisted, skittering melodies and complicated, chorus-free rock songs but to the devout the band's cerebral art rock was like manna from the heavens. 2003's &lt;I&gt;Hail to the Thief&lt;/I&gt; offered up a mixture of guitar-driven tracks amid a more restless desire to experiment. In 2007, Radiohead shook up the music industry with &lt;i&gt;In Rainbows&lt;/i&gt;, an album released via their website in which fans could name their own price.
- Kelly Bauman" category="Brit Rock" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/radiohead/data.opml?rws=%2Falt-punk%2Findie-alternative%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Pearl Jam" description="Many accused Pearl Jam of being a mainstream hard rock band that happened to hop on the alt rock gravy train at its busiest stop (Grungeville circa late 1991/early 1992), thereby reaping the benefits of constant exposure on suddenly flannel-friendly MTV with hit videos for &quot;Alive,&quot; &quot;Even Flow&quot; and, most notably, &quot;Jeremy.&quot; In the wake of the unpredictable success of their multi-platinum anthem-fest/debut &lt;i&gt;Ten&lt;/i&gt;, Eddie Vedder eventually got used to being a celebrity. Not coincidentally, the band bravely began messing with its straight-ahead rock formula around that same time: &quot;Spin the Black Circle&quot; married punk with garage rock, &quot;Off He Goes&quot; put their own &quot;Daughter&quot; to shame for fireside ambiance, &quot;Around the Bend&quot; manifested the effects of &lt;i&gt;Mirror Ball&lt;/i&gt; (their 1995 collaboration with Neil Young) soft and clear, and &quot;Low Light&quot; out-R.E.M.'d R.E.M. in its waltzing, acoustic beauty. In 2000, Pearl Jam began releasing no less than 72 volumes of live material chronicling the American and European legs of their tour in support of &lt;i&gt;Binaural&lt;/i&gt;, which came out the same year. 2002's &lt;i&gt;Riot Act&lt;/i&gt; proved that the band was as relevant as ever, and in 2006 they returned with a self-titled, heavy blast of anthemic anger at the state of the world. Pearl Jam are one of the few stalwarts surviving from the long-ago age of grunge hype, and they've actually become bolder and better with age.
- Charles Hodgkins" category="Grunge" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/pearl-jam/data.opml?rws=%2Falt-punk%2Findie-alternative%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Regina Spektor" description="By the time Regina Spektor's major label debut, &lt;i&gt;Begin to Hope&lt;/i&gt;, arrived in 2006, the Russian-born singer already had a lengthy pedigree as a musician. She took up piano under the direction of her musically inclined parents while a child in Moscow. Her family eventually moved to the Bronx, where she continued classical studies at the Manhattan School of Music and started writing her own music. Her musical pursuits carried through college, and she graduated from a music composition program at Purchase College in 2001. Frequenting venues in Manhattan, she became associated with the so-called &quot;anti-folk&quot; movement and self-released 2001's &lt;i&gt;11:11&lt;/i&gt;, 2002's &lt;i&gt;Songs&lt;/i&gt; and 2004's &lt;i&gt;Soviet Kitsch&lt;/i&gt;, which Sire later reissued. A compilation of early recordings, &lt;i&gt;Mary Ann Meets the Gravediggers and Other Short Stories&lt;/i&gt;, was released in 2006. In 2009, Spektor gathered an all-star production team to help her with &lt;i&gt;Far&lt;/i&gt;, the much anticipated follow-up to &lt;i&gt;Begin to Hope&lt;/i&gt;.
- Nate Cavalieri" category="Indie Pop" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/regina-spektor/data.opml?rws=%2Falt-punk%2Findie-alternative%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Wilco" description="Following the 1994 breakup of alt country pioneers Uncle Tupelo, co-founder Jeff Tweedy immediately formed Wilco. Over the next three albums, the band recorded the rootsy &lt;i&gt;A.M.&lt;/i&gt;, veered toward the orchestral pop of &lt;i&gt;Being There&lt;/i&gt;, and earned a Grammy nomination for &lt;i&gt;Mermaid Avenue&lt;/i&gt; (an album of Woody Guthrie lyrics for which the band and Billy Bragg wrote music), before running toward a sunny, West Coast-inspired pop utopia of complex introspection with &lt;i&gt;Summer Teeth&lt;/i&gt;. Upon parting ways with founding member Jay Bennett, Wilco independently released (after some wrangling with Warner Bros.) &lt;/i&gt;Yankee Hotel Foxtrot&lt;/i&gt;. It was with &lt;i&gt;Foxtrot&lt;/i&gt; that Wilco succeeded at leaving any alt country vestiges behind, venturing into more moody, dislocated songwriting tangled up inside noise experiments and amputated guitar leads. Wilco's fifth album &lt;i&gt;A Ghost Is Born&lt;/i&gt; continued to help the band search for their sound somewhere between sonic gambles and innovative production. Their sixth, &lt;i&gt;Sky Blue Sky&lt;/i&gt;, came in the spring of 2007, sounding like a return to simplified guitar pop with sing-along songs that unfold and unleash stormy guitar solos courtesy of Nels Cline. Some songs even hint at a slight return to the band's twangy roots.
- Eric Shea" category="Indie/Alternative" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/wilco/data.opml?rws=%2Falt-punk%2Findie-alternative%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="R.E.M." description="Between 1983 and 1986, R.E.M.'s first four albums defined a type of music still taking shape at the time, an as-yet unnamed &quot;alternative&quot; rock then emerging on college radio. With Peter Buck's Velvet Underground-influenced guitars and Michael Stipe's murkily poetic lyrics, R.E.M. were the de facto kings of the underground in the '80s. &lt;i&gt;Life's Rich Pageant&lt;/i&gt;, generally regarded as the band's fourth near-perfect album in a row when it came out in 1986, gave them an untouchable cache among their peers and fans. This popularity grew with the advent of alternative-themed radio stations and video shows on MTV, finally breaking when &lt;i&gt;Green&lt;/I&gt; came out in 1988 and &quot;The One I Love&quot; became an inescapable MTV/radio hit. &lt;i&gt;Out of Time&lt;/i&gt; followed in 1991 and yielded &quot;Losing My Religion,&quot; which remains their most popular song today. The next three albums sold in astronomical numbers, and in 1997 Warner Bros paid them $80 million to re-up their contract. After signing the deal, founding bass player Bill Berry opted to leave the band, and between 1997 and 2008 R.E.M. released four studio albums amid a few collections and a live set.
- Mike McGuirk" category="Jangle Pop" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/rem/data.opml?rws=%2Falt-punk%2Findie-alternative%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="The Dodos" description="The Dodos' songwriter and guitarist Meric Long grew up in the San Francisco suburbs and was making a name for himself as a solo artist in the Bay Area before hooking up with drummer Logan Kroeber for his self-released &lt;i&gt;Dodo Bird&lt;/i&gt; EP in 2005. Long's intricate finger-picking and knack for sentimental melodies fit well with Kroeber's propulsive approach to the kit (he'd studied both African drumming and played in metal bands) and they self-released an LP, &lt;i&gt;Beware of the Maniacs&lt;/i&gt;, in 2006. Their growing audiences in San Francisco led to some label interest and the following year they signed to Frenchkiss Records for their critically acclaimed sophomore LP, &lt;i&gt;Visiter&lt;/i&gt;. In 2009, the duo added another Dodo to their nest, vibraphonist Keaton Snyder, and recruited producer Phil Ek (The Shins, Band of Horses, Fleet Foxes) for their third album, &lt;i&gt;Time To Die&lt;/i&gt;." category="Baroque Pop" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/the-dodos/data.opml?rws=%2Falt-punk%2Findie-alternative%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Death Cab For Cutie" description="Long before &lt;I&gt;The O.C.&lt;/I&gt;'s resident hipster Seth Cohen proclaimed his love for the band, the Bellingham, Wash., natives were cranking out sweet, cozy melodies for reflective romantics. After the success of a cassette put together by Ben Gibbard in 1997, the vocalist and guitarist decided to transform his solo project into a full-fledged band. When guitarist Chris Walla, bassist Nick Harmer and drummer Nathan Good came aboard, Death Cab For Cutie were born. The band took its name from a Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band song that appeared in the Beatles movie &lt;I&gt;Magical Mystery Tour&lt;/I&gt;. By 1998, Death Cab's debut, &lt;I&gt;Something About Airplanes&lt;/I&gt;, was released, recalling the off-kilter guitar pop of Built to Spill and the quietly passionate storytelling of Elliott Smith. The band went on to create three more LPs before signing to Atlantic Records and releasing the Grammy-nominated &lt;I&gt;Plans&lt;/I&gt; in 2005. Nearly three years later, &lt;I&gt;Narrow Stairs&lt;/I&gt; revealed a slightly changed Death Cab, which cited heavy metal as an influence. Though more Band of Horses than Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, the brawnier approach worked; it was their first album to top the Billboard charts.
- Stephanie Benson" category="Indie/Alternative" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/death-cab-for-cutie/data.opml?rws=%2Falt-punk%2Findie-alternative%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Nirvana" description="The phenomenal success of Foo Fighters demonstrates that Nirvana were a talented trio, and not just a rickety pair of training wheels for Kurt Cobain's wild ride into fame and annihilation. Obscured behind a smokescreen of publicity and deadened by the effects of endless radio play, Nirvana's music nonetheless holds its own as some of the very best of the 1990s. Krist Novoselic, Dave Grohl and Cobain managed to direct molten flows of white noise into melodic channels navigable by mainstream listeners. Cobain's lyrics, meanwhile, were imbued with the Pentecostal passion of someone speaking in tongues. Traveling in rapid pendulum swings from mania to catatonia, his singing conveyed the pain of a soul mortgaged deep in addiction and depression. He was a man trying desperately to make sense, through song, of the world around him -- something not often heard in Top-40 music. It's unfortunate that the nihilistic elements of Cobain's life and art were so widely and readily embraced by a Pied Piper-following cadre of Kurtophiles bent on viewing self-destruction as ennobling. Nirvana never aspired to be the anti-heroic role models that certain hopeless souls among us needed them to be. To make music that mattered is all they ever wanted, and they took genuine risks to achieve that goal. In the process, they inadvertently altered the geography of modern culture by popularizing (for better or worse) so-called &quot;alternative&quot; music.
- Chad Driscoll" category="Grunge" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/nirvana/data.opml?rws=%2Falt-punk%2Findie-alternative%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Lily Allen" description="Lily Allen is the precocious daughter of actor/comedian Keith Allen and film producer mom, Alison Owen. Despite a privileged background, Allen was somewhat of a handful growing up, often running away and getting expelled from various schools. By 15, Allen knew school wasn't for her, so she dropped out and eventually started working on music. Lily's sound draws on her parent's music collection, which included such groundbreaking, female-fronted acts as Rip, Rig and Panic, the Slits and Blondie. But her fondness for hip-hop and urban storytellers also shines through both in her style of delivery and in her rock steady beats. Allen's reputation as a formidable voice from the street grew via her myspace page, and that led to her deal with Parlaphone. In late 2006, Allen's single &quot;Smile&quot; hit No. 1 on the UK charts. In 2007, Allen's debut album, &lt;I&gt;Alright, Still&lt;/I&gt;, was released in the U.S., followed by &lt;i&gt;It's Not Me, It's You&lt;/i&gt; in February 2009.
- Linda Ryan" category="Indie Pop" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/lily-allen/data.opml?rws=%2Falt-punk%2Findie-alternative%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Smashing Pumpkins" description="Billy Corgan and his Chicago cohorts arrived just as the alternative sea-swell was crashing ashore in the early 1990s, doing so with shiny, super-produced alt rock far removed from the Pacific Northwest's guttural Grunge rumblings. Corgan's obsessive, perfectionist nature helped rear an omnipresent triumvirate of crucial albums between 1991-95, each of which grandly built upon the scope and sound of its predecessor. &lt;I&gt;Gish&lt;/I&gt;, &lt;I&gt;Siamese Dream&lt;/I&gt;, and &lt;I&gt;Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness&lt;/I&gt; -- in addition to the myriad songs released as non-album tracks during that time -- were chiefly characterized by Corgan's vocals that could whisper one moment and wail the next, Corgan and James Iha's overdriven, buzzing, these-go-to-11 guitars, and Jimmy Chamberlin's propulsive, overwhelmingly powerful drum work that thrust &quot;Silverf*ck,&quot; &quot;Bury Me,&quot; and &quot;Geek U.S.A.&quot; into fifth gear. Lineup changes and an electronica-embracing sound muddled the band's late '90s efforts, and the Pumpkins called it quits in 2000. After years of near-constant speculation, Corgan and Chamberlin partnered to reform the group in 2007, releasing the bombastic &lt;i&gt;Zeitgeist&lt;/i&gt; and returning to the world stage.
- Charles Hodgkins" category="Dream Pop" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/smashing-pumpkins/data.opml?rws=%2Falt-punk%2Findie-alternative%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="The Cure" description="Endurance and validity have long been words attributed to the music and career of England's most legendary alternative band. The band have gone from being the closet secret of the goth crowd to popular acceptance to sold-out stadium tours with nary a break in quality. Robert Smith's romanticism with all things morose was exemplified on their sparse early releases like &lt;I&gt;Pornography&lt;/I&gt; and &lt;I&gt;Faith&lt;/I&gt;. Smith's formerly monotone vocals took a turn upon the release of &lt;I&gt;The Top&lt;/I&gt; in '84 and suddenly he had adopted a kind of feline yelp in his vocals, and tracks like &quot;The Caterpillar&quot; bubbled with an odd, lively energy. Through the end of the '80s the band honed their incredible pop skills to much acclaim as &quot;In Between Days&quot; and &quot;Just Like Heaven&quot; piped out of every incense-lit bedroom from here to Calcutta. Just as their early fan base had begun to drift as the band explored the exceedingly vibrant pop of &quot;Why Can't I Be You&quot; and &quot;Hot Hot Hot!!!,&quot; they released &lt;I&gt;Disintegration&lt;/I&gt; in '89. A wonderfully dark and beautiful record, marked by Smith's relentlessly stunning guitar work and fluid imagery, it proved to be the band's biggest success. It also laid the groundwork for how the band would spend most of the '90s. Spiking their work with an almost irritating giddiness and melodic melancholy, the band continue to be masters of lush, crimson-hued pop." category="Goth" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/the-cure/data.opml?rws=%2Falt-punk%2Findie-alternative%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Phoenix" description="When Phoenix first hit American indie audiences, they were already tight with Beck and the French band Air. Hailing from the Parisian suburbs, Phoenix began putting their act together like any other suburban band -- in the garage. The band comprised of vocalist Thomas Mars, bassist Deck D'Arcy and guitarist Christian Mazzalai (his older brother Laurent &quot;Branco&quot; Brancowitz joined them in 1995 after playing in Darlin' with Thomas Bangalter and Guy Manuel de Homem-Christo, who would later become Daft Punk). On their first album, 2000's &lt;i&gt;United&lt;/i&gt;, they lay down R&amp;B-influenced grooves with 1980s-inspired synth pop to create their trademark sound of breezy, indie electro-pop. Their follow-up, 2004's &lt;i&gt;Alphabetical&lt;/i&gt;, helped push the band a little further beyond the French music scene with the help of single &quot;Everything is Everything.&quot; Next came extensive touring, the release of 2006's &lt;i&gt;It's Never Been Like That&lt;/i&gt; and more touring. Phoenix made their biggest impact yet on the American audience when they performed on &lt;i&gt;Saturday Night Live&lt;/i&gt; prior to dropping 2009's &lt;i&gt;Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix&lt;/i&gt;.
- Stephanie Benson" category="Indie Pop" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/phoenix/data.opml?rws=%2Falt-punk%2Findie-alternative%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="MGMT" description="MGMT (pronounced Management) are a restless electronic-rock duo. The two members -- Andrew VanWyngarden and Ben Goldwasser -- came together in 2002 while attending Wesleyan University in Connecticut as art students. In 2005, they released the catchy synth scrum &quot;Time to Pretend,&quot; which became an underground hit and led to their being signed by Columbia Records. Their debut, &lt;i&gt;Oracular Spectacular&lt;/i&gt;, a collection of sweeping, electronic Flaming Lips-style noise-pop songs, was released in 2007. Critical and popular accolades for the band reached a high at the CMJ Music Marathon a few weeks after the album's release. A tour alongside Of Montreal and a remix from Justice helped the band continue to merge its twin tendencies towards psychedelic pop and electro.
- Philip Sherburne" category="Electropop" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/mgmt/data.opml?rws=%2Falt-punk%2Findie-alternative%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Alice in Chains" description="Alice in Chains' debut arrived at the outset of the '90s without a name for the market they were supposed to attract. Their sound was too unique to be considered metal and more visceral than mere straight-ahead rock, but it was soon lumped in with that of other prominent bands emerging from the overcast skies of Seattle around the same time. Gritty, down-tuned guitars kept their legion of fans headbanging to &quot;Man in a Box&quot; and &quot;Would?,&quot; offering sharp contrast to their mellower acoustic output (&quot;Got Me Wrong,&quot; &quot;No Excuses&quot;). However, it was Jerry Cantrell and Layne Staley's thick and dissonant harmonies which became one of their most imitated and original features, spawning endless copiers. Heroin-tinged lyrics and jagged, odd-time riffs foreshadowed their supposed demise, but their influence lives on in many of today's copycat bands.
- Jessy Terry" category="Grunge" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/alice-in-chains/data.opml?rws=%2Falt-punk%2Findie-alternative%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Yeah Yeah Yeahs" description="The Yeah Yeah Yeahs formed in Brooklyn, N.Y., in 2000, after guitarist Nick Zinner and vocalist Karen O met in a bar and began writing songs on an acoustic guitar together. They brought in an old friend (Brian Chase) on the drums, and decided to forgo the bass all together in an attempt to make as much of a punked-up, glammed-up racket as possible. An EP came out in 2001, when they also made their first live appearances opening up for the White Stripes. As the touring continued, so did the press. People were drawn to Karen O's punk rock/&lt;I&gt;Flashdance&lt;/I&gt;-style of dress, not to mention her vocals, which could moan and shriek with passion and suffering. The band itself ran from dance-oriented 4/4 beats toward choppy post-punk; songs are clunky, spastic and melodic. Their debut album, &lt;I&gt;Fever Too Tell&lt;/I&gt;, came out in 2003 and features the hit &quot;Maps.&quot; They followed up that success with 2006's &lt;i&gt;Show Your Bones&lt;/i&gt;. For their third release, 2009's &lt;i&gt;It's Blitz&lt;/i&gt;, the trio took a slightly different approach, washing their gritty guitar rock in a wave of synths and dance beats.
- Jon Pruett" category="Indie/Alternative" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/yeah-yeah-yeahs/data.opml?rws=%2Falt-punk%2Findie-alternative%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Silversun Pickups" description="With their distorted vocals, winding guitars drenched in warm, crubling effect pedals and raw-riffing rock power, the Silversun Pickups rightfully garner many a comparison to alt-rock '90s heroes the Smashing Pumpkins (minus Billy Corgan's nasally croon, though). But that's merely what you'll hear on the surface of their sound. Beneath that veneer, the washed out guitar textures and barbed, melodic harmonies recall early Breeders and latter-day Nirvana. But the Pickups also have a tendency to lean hard on poppier West Coast indie rock songwriting sensibilities a la Earlimart. A product of L.A.'s incestuous music scene, founder Brian Aubert has said that the sum of his band's parts can be blamed on what he calls the &quot;tumbleweed effect&quot; -- it blows along and influences stick to it. He also says that the band was ushered onto the live stage before they were ready to play, which forced it to either crash-land or flap their wings and learn to fly. Listening to their 2006 debut long player &lt;i&gt;Carnavas&lt;/i&gt; and follow-up &lt;i&gt;Swoon&lt;/i&gt; reveals that they were able to pull off the latter.
- Eric Shea" category="Indie/Alternative" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/silversun-pickups/data.opml?rws=%2Falt-punk%2Findie-alternative%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Beck" description="Beck Hansen spent his formative years in coffeehouses creating a suburban, angst-ridden persona that would eventually lead to a multiplatinum career and inspire legions of 7-Eleven slackers. Since the surprisingly successful 1994 single &quot;Loser,&quot; Beck has continued onward and upward with a number of diversely creative, genre-jumping releases. He has emerged as one of the most colorful post-modern popsters -- from the contemplative &lt;I&gt;One Foot in the Grave&lt;/I&gt; to the Dust Brothers-produced, folk-hop masterpiece &lt;I&gt;Odelay&lt;/I&gt; and the futuristic party funk of &lt;I&gt;Midnite Vultures&lt;/I&gt;. With albums like &lt;I&gt;Mutations&lt;/I&gt; and &lt;I&gt;Sea Change&lt;/I&gt;, Beck has shown that he's just as capable conveying the wounds of a broken heart as he is rapping about Cheez Whiz. Perhaps hoping to win back the post-modern tag, the troubadour returned to the beats in 2005 on the barrio-themed &lt;I&gt;Guero&lt;/I&gt; and again in 2008 with &lt;I&gt;Modern Guilt&lt;/I&gt;, produced by the equally trickster-like Danger Mouse. Magnetism and quirky charm dutifully intact -- he once threatened to play K-Mart retail stores exclusively -- Beck continues to party way past bedtime, singing, dancing and raking it in like it's 1999.
- Jon Pruett" category="Post-Modern Pop" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/beck/data.opml?rws=%2Falt-punk%2Findie-alternative%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Cake" description="Cake originally brought their brand of postmodern, sarcastic, genre-jumping, fun rock to wiseguys (and girls) everywhere in the early 1990s. Funk, hip-hop and both jam and alt rock came together, birthing a smash hit known as &quot;The Distance&quot; in '96. The song became one of the biggest competitive team sports soundtrack numbers since Queen's &quot;We Are The Champions,&quot; Blur's &quot;Song 2&quot; or even Gary Glitter's &quot;Rock And Roll Part 2.&quot; Cake work best when singer John McCrea is at his driest, serving up sardonic, trumpet-driven quips. They originally garnered a devoted following through constant exposure to the great suburban playground that is Sacramento, Calif. (by way of U.C. Davis parties). Despite lineup changes and a major label segue, Cake continue to innovate pop music with their formulaic blend of tuneful guitar bursts, mariachi-derived trumpet, funky-white boy rhythms, and McCrea's deadpan King-Missile-meets-Steven-Wright vocals.
- Eric Shea" category="Post-Modern Pop" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/cake/data.opml?rws=%2Falt-punk%2Findie-alternative%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="The Shins" description="It would be nice to think that the Shins just exploded into the indie rock world back in 2001, arriving out of nowhere and inspiring immediate devotion from those who like their pop charged with smarts. Truth is, the roots of the band stretch back nearly five years earlier, when singer/lyricist James Mercer had the band Flake in New Mexico. Flake begat Flake Music. Flake Music did an album, toured and basically embodied the sound of an indie rock band struggling, but to their credit doing much more than that, by creating slighty spiky, melodic pop. The key factor in the story came when James Mercer decided he wanted to do his own project, his own songs, either for his own solo album or under the unlikely name of the Shins. He goes for the Shins. His compatriots in Flake Music heard the new songs, jumped ship and suddenly everyone is a Shin. The songs were recorded and ended up over at Sub Pop, and the next thing you know, the Shins are touring and eeking their way into the indie rock subconscious, helping Sub Pop sell more records than they have in years. As for the music: you can't hear &quot;New Slang&quot; and not think it's a good song. It's just impossible. The group's other songs walk that much-coveted line between familiarity and originality. There's a little bit of Kinks, a little bit of Beach Boys, some Echo &amp; The Bunnymen, but it's truly nothing like any of those. It's book-smart pop that doesn't try to be too witty; it just wants to be part of the musical landscape for maybe a few minutes, maybe more. Through this, they've become romanticized and even imitated. A success story, to say the least, further cemented with a Grammy nomination for Best Alternative Music Album for 2007's &lt;i&gt;Wincing The Night Away&lt;/i&gt;.
- Jon Pruett" category="Baroque Pop" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/the-shins/data.opml?rws=%2Falt-punk%2Findie-alternative%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Iron and Wine" description="Lo-fi tapes of hushed acoustic indie rock go together with Miami like
(tanning) oil and (salt) water, spring break and sobriety, Florida governor
Jeb Bush and a problem-free day at the polls. See, what we're saying is they
seem kind of incongruous. But Mr. Samuel Beam, aka Iron &amp; Wine, was living
in Miami crafting just such beguiling home recordings when Jonathan Poneman
of Sub Pop &quot;discovered&quot; him via an indie magazine in Seattle. The mesmerized
Poneman contacted Beam and hounded him for music until Beam finally mailed
him two full-length CDs. Sub Pop almost released both right off the bat, but
instead pared them down into Iron &amp; Wine's debut, &lt;i&gt;The Creek Drank the
Cradle&lt;/i&gt;, released in 2002. A hi-fi studio recording (2004's &lt;i&gt;Our
Endless Numbered Days&lt;/i&gt;) and a few EPs (including 2005's &lt;i&gt;In the
Rein&lt;/i&gt;, a joint effort with Calexico) followed. For 2007's &lt;i&gt;The Shepherd's Dog&lt;/i&gt;, Beam beefed up the musicianship, filling songs with eccentric worldly nuances, making it one of his most upbeat and cohesive albums to date.
- Rachel Devitt" category="Singer-Songwriter" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/iron-and-wine/data.opml?rws=%2Falt-punk%2Findie-alternative%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Talking Heads" description="Art school and punk rock truly came head to head when the Talking Heads formed in 1974. Although they sported neither spiked hair nor pinned shirts, they perfectly embodied outsider outlandishness, and their stuttering vocals, choppy rhythms and detached lyrics fit right in at CBGB's. This phase wouldn't last long, however, as David Byrne's smartly subversive songwriting was bound to find an audience bigger than New York's punk rock elite. With &lt;I&gt;Fear Of Music&lt;/I&gt; (1979), the band began to radiate a kind of somber power, as they beefed up their previously lean sound with African rhythms. &lt;I&gt;Remain In Light&lt;/I&gt; followed in 1980, and remains one of the more striking albums of that decade or any other. The rhythms were meticulous and yet completely driving, while the production was highly experimental with enough conventional flourishes to make &quot;Once In A Lifetime&quot; a radio success. Their blueprint now set, the group became hugely successful over the course of the 1980s, and their 1984 concert film is widely considered one of the best ever made. Their music was so immediate that their world beat-inspired songs still sound unique in whatever context they're heard. The group gave official notice that it was disbanding in 1991, bringing an inevitable close to one of the most creative and experimental commercially successful acts in rock 'n' roll.
- Jon Pruett" category="New Wave" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/talking-heads/data.opml?rws=%2Falt-punk%2Findie-alternative%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="The Dead Weather" description="Not sated by the success of their other gigs, the members of the Dead Weather first came together for an on-the-fly jam session in early 2009. From there, the synergy sizzled, and a new group of alt-rock heavyweights was born. Between the lot is a lengthy resume: Jack White is also leader of the White Stripes and the Raconteurs, not to mention an avid collaborator; Alison Mosshart offers her gritty howls as frontwoman for the Kills; Jack Lawrence plays an array of instruments plus bass guitar for the Raconteurs and the Greenhornes; and Dean Fertita lends his guitar and keyboard skills to bands like Queens of the Stone Age. With the Dead Weather, the prolific White proves his diverse skills, taking on drumming duties along with some guitar and vocals, while Mosshart, with her sly, suggestive rasp, leads her male charges through raw, bluesy garage rock inspired by classic-rock titans like Janis Joplin and Led Zeppelin. The band took no time getting its music out to the public, releasing its debut album, &lt;i&gt;Horehound&lt;/i&gt;, in July 2009.
- Stephanie Benson" category="Garage Rock Revival" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/the-dead-weather/data.opml?rws=%2Falt-punk%2Findie-alternative%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Gorillaz" description="The Gorillaz' image may be cartoonish, but with artists like Del the Funky Homosapian, Dan the Automator, and members of Blur, Cibo Matto, and Tom Tom Club contributing, their music is anything but lightweight. Experimental in nature and obtuse in scope, the Gorillaz' sound melds Damon Albarn's sharp pop sensibilities with Dan the Automator's eclectic bass-heavy, beat-driven hip hop. And although the combination doesn't always gel, when they hit the mark, it's usually with a bull's eye. Perhaps it was the cartoon facade, or the side-project feel of the collaborative, but when the Gorillaz's self-titled debut was released in 2001, critics predicted a short shelf life for the band. Despite this, the Gorillaz's album went platinum and the group scored a couple of hefty hits with &quot;Clint Eastwood&quot; and &quot;19-2000.&quot; But when most of the members of the group went back to their day jobs, most assumed that was the end of them. But in July 2005, the band released its follow-up, &lt;I&gt;Demon Days.&lt;/I&gt; As the title suggests, the Gorillaz's sophomore effort casts a darker shadow; however, this is tempered by slick-sounding beats and a variety of happy-go-lucky blips and bleeps. The group scored a radio hit this second time around with the single &quot;Feel Good, Inc.&quot;
- Linda Ryan" category="Experimental Rap/Hip-Hop" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/gorillaz/data.opml?rws=%2Falt-punk%2Findie-alternative%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="The Decemberists" description="The Decemberists are a Portland-based indie-rock band with a baroque bent. What sets the five-piece apart from the million other jangly rock groups (in the northwest alone) is their combination of breezy melodies, literate lyrics and nontraditional instrumentation (horns, piano, steel guitar and violins). The band formed in 2000 and is comprised of singer Colin Meloy, drummer Ezra Holbrook, keyboardist/accordionist Jenny Conlee and guitarist Chris Funk. In 2003, hometown label Kill Rock Stars re-released their debut album, &lt;i&gt;Castaways and Cutouts&lt;/i&gt;, a collection of wistful indie-pop songs that showcase Meloy's creative-writing talents. Successive albums &lt;i&gt;Her Majesty&lt;/i&gt; and &lt;i&gt;Picaresque&lt;/i&gt; saw the band become more lush and baroque-sounding. In 2006, the band released its major-label debut, &lt;i&gt;The Crane Wife&lt;/i&gt;, on Capitol Records.
- Dan Shumate" category="Indie/Alternative" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/the-decemberists/data.opml?rws=%2Falt-punk%2Findie-alternative%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Stone Temple Pilots" description="Though plagued by unaccepting critics over their career, Stone Temple Pilots have continued to win fans, selling more than 20 million albums and grabbing a Grammy in the process. Among the early harbingers of grunge, STP draw from influences such as Led Zeppelin and Black Flag to create their own influential sound.
- Jessy Terry" category="Grunge" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/stone-temple-pilots/data.opml?rws=%2Falt-punk%2Findie-alternative%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Nelly Furtado" description="Although she grew up in Canada, Nelly Furtado's parents were Portuguese immigrants, and she was raised surrounded by the rhythms of traditional Portuguese music. Still drawn to the beat years later, Furtado gravitated toward the popular rap and contemporary R&amp;B groups of the day. Like many teenagers, she used music not only as a means of escape, but also as a way to fan the flames of her dreams. After graduating from high school, Furtado headed to Toronto, where she formed the hip-hop duo Nelster. Still working a day job, Furtado haunted clubs at night, until being spotted by Brian West and Gerald Eaton of the Philosopher Kings. The pair produced a demo that landed the chanteuse her deal with Dreamworks, and continued to turn the knobs on Furtado's 2000 debut, &lt;I&gt;Whoa, Nelly!&lt;/I&gt;. Three years later, she issued the more reflective album, &lt;I&gt;Folklore&lt;/I&gt;. Three years after &lt;I&gt;that&lt;/I&gt; (and after giving birth to her daughter), Furtado took off in a completely different direction with &lt;I&gt;Loose&lt;/I&gt;, a collection of sleek, sexy, hip-hop-infused dance pop (much of it, including the huge hit &quot;Promiscuous,&quot; produced by Timbaland) aimed at conquering the top 40 -- which she certainly did. Another three years went by and it was time for -- you guessed it -- another new direction, this time with &lt;I&gt;Mi Plan&lt;/I&gt;, a collection of Spanish-language pop.
- Linda Ryan" category="Pop" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/nelly-furtado/data.opml?rws=%2Falt-punk%2Findie-alternative%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Feist" description="If Call and Response's Carrie Clough is the Nick Drake of indie rock, then Leslie Feist is the Colin Blunstone. Her voice has that warm, buttery ooze that melts down the microphone with the same gentle timbre heard on Blunstone's &quot;Caroline Goodbye.&quot; Feist's musical history maps out almost as nomadically as her own travels. She cut her pearly whites in a Calgary punk band called Placebo (not to be confused with the eyeliner-and-nail-polish-wearing British guys) and got to play her very first show opening for the Ramones after winning a battle of the bands contest while still attending high school. Needless to say, that show changed her life. She spent the next half-decade touring in a van and screaming her voice out -- literally. Medical doctors told her that she would never be able to sing again, but doctors say a lot of things. She relocated to Toronto and hibernated for half a year with a guitar and a four-track, honing her layering skills to a razor-like sharpness. The guitar replaced her voice for a while, and she dove deep into barbed pop architecture, later playing guitar for (and touring with) By Divine Right. Working with a voice specialist over the years paid off and in 1999 Feist recorded her first solo album, &lt;I&gt;Monarch (Lay Down Your Jeweled Head)&lt;/I&gt;. A year later she moved in with &lt;I&gt;Vice Magazine&lt;/I&gt; poster girl Peaches and opened up for the electroclash artiste on her first American tour. After that, she joined Broken Social Scene for their second album and toured the U.S. and Europe with them before cranking out her sophomore album, &lt;/I&gt;Let It Die&lt;/I&gt;, in Paris with Chilly Gonzales and Renaud Letang in 2004. Her solo material can be categorized as indie pop, but Feist balances sophisticated baroque styling with a trip-hop derivative of her own invention that weaves in and out of classic folky frameworks while her ethereal vocals layer over one another in gossamer harmonies. When she plays solo, Feist is the master of the looping effect pedal. She'll strum her electric guitar and catch a riff on it and then pick out a catchy arpeggio to stack on top before looping up to five layers of her heavenly vocals to sound like a one-woman pop symphony. If you see her listed in the pages of your local alt weekly, do yourself a favor and throw down whatever cover they're charging to see her. You will be moved.
- Eric Shea" category="Baroque Pop" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/feist/data.opml?rws=%2Falt-punk%2Findie-alternative%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Carolina Liar" description="The singer for Carolina Liar, Chad Wolf, is from South Carolina, but after a chance meeting with big-shot Swedish producer Max Martin (Pink, Britney Spears), the budding songwriter was relocated to Stockholm. Backed by locals, he recorded what would become Carolina Liar's debut album, &lt;i&gt;Coming to Terms&lt;/i&gt;, in 2008. With hints of classic new wave peppering pop music, Carolina Liar resurrect the sounds of the early '00s, echoing Snow Patrol and a more mainstream-ready Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Since the release of &lt;i&gt;Coming to Terms&lt;/i&gt;, a handful of singles (&quot;Last Night,&quot; &quot;Beautiful World,&quot; &quot;I'm Not Over&quot;) have appeared on such TV shows as &lt;i&gt;90210&lt;/i&gt;, &lt;i&gt;Greek&lt;/i&gt; and &lt;i&gt;One Tree Hill&lt;/i&gt;, among others.
- Mike McGuirk" category="Adult Alternative" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/carolina-liar/data.opml?rws=%2Falt-punk%2Findie-alternative%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="The Cranberries" description="The success of the Cranberries' 1993 single &quot;Linger&quot; was certainly the result of their near-flawless sound. One listen to Dolores O'Riordan's voice -- an intense, piercing wail that soars emotively or shifts, at note's end, to a keen yelp -- and anyone within earshot is transfixed. Combined with the band's shimmering, folk-influenced guitar pop and excellent studio production, the Cranberries' popularity and chart success seems only logical. The singles that followed &quot;Linger,&quot; &quot;Zombie&quot; and &quot;Ode to My Family,&quot; both soared up the American and U.K. charts, resulting in multiplatinum album sales. By the time of their third LP, &lt;i&gt;To the Faithful Departed&lt;/i&gt;, the band were already a household name on both sides of the Atlantic." category="Adult Alternative" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/the-cranberries/data.opml?rws=%2Falt-punk%2Findie-alternative%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Ingrid Michaelson" description="If there were a genre of music called &lt;I&gt;Grey's Anatomy&lt;/I&gt; (and come on, there pretty much is), Ingrid Michaelson would be one of its key artists. Sensitive and smart, poignant and pretty, she writes intimate, introspective songs about love, heartbreak and growing up. Of course, she is the daughter of two sensitive artistic types -- Dad's a composer and Mom's a sculptor. Michaelson grew up on Staten Island, spent her childhood taking piano and voice lessons and got a degree in theater from Binghamton University. Along the way, she also started writing songs and self-released two albums. Pretty soon, her efforts earned her some high-profile fans -- namely, Old Navy and, yes, &lt;I&gt;Grey's Anatomy&lt;/I&gt;, who decided Michaelson's dreamy, bespectacled musical aesthetic was just the thing for shilling casual wear and Meredith Grey's McAngst. And that, friends, is how you get to the top of the &lt;I&gt;Grey's Anatomy&lt;/I&gt; genre, which is a pretty sweet spot in 2007.
- Rachel Devitt" category="Indie Pop" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/ingrid-michaelson/data.opml?rws=%2Falt-punk%2Findie-alternative%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Alanis Morissette" description="While Alanis Morissette came to prominence largely on the strength of her seething, vengeful single &quot;You Oughta Know,&quot; her evolution as an artist is a study in leapfrogged temperaments -- from her tomboy character on Canadian television's &lt;I&gt;You Can't Do That on Television&lt;/I&gt; to her Juno Award-winning Dance Pop years (with material not unlike that of Tiffany or Debbie Gibson) to &lt;I&gt;Jagged Little Pill&lt;/I&gt;'s take-back-the-night stance to her current kinder, gentler, global self (No -- thank &lt;I&gt;you&lt;/I&gt;, India). Morissette continues to do what most pop stars do best -- perform. While many artists of late have jumped on the phat beat bandwagon in a gamble for the approval of their audience and come up empty handed, Morissette's producer did so effectively with &quot;Are You Still Mad,&quot; forging entrancing loops and eerily tense melodies to accompany her strong, dramatic vocal. The track marked a slight departure from the radio-friendly, heartwarming melodrama to which many had become so accustomed in recent years. Dark cellos and creepy, cascading piano melodies create engaging, almost cerebral soundscapes to offset Morissette's self-centered empowerment lyrics and dynamic, arena-friendly voice. An open challenge for all to just &quot;get over it.&quot;
- Kelly Bauman" category="Adult Alternative" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/alanis-morissette/data.opml?rws=%2Falt-punk%2Findie-alternative%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Imogen Heap" description="Best known as the lead singer of trip-hop duo Frou Frou, Imogen Heap's solo work is at least as interesting -- if not more -- as her collaborations. A bundle of young, exciting and vibrant talent, Heap composes solo music that reveals both shrewd craftsmanship and eloquent passion. As a pianist/keyboardist, her skill is immediately apparent and quite impressive: there are passages on her debut &lt;I&gt;i Megaphone&lt;/I&gt; that are simply dazzling. Song arrangements display a keen awareness of what is &lt;I&gt;now&lt;/I&gt; -- drumbeats and basslines are consistently danceable while electronic noises swoop and swirl with a refreshingly understated gracefulness. As a vocalist, Heap brings a slinky, sexy toughness that's never riddled with melodrama. Even when she's at her most vulnerable, one can't help but think she's a born survivor who can weather any emotional storm. Heap and her co-conspirators do justice to her distinctive, honest vocal delivery and lyrics and her superb musicianship.
- Will Lerner" category="Indie Pop" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/imogen-heap/data.opml?rws=%2Falt-punk%2Findie-alternative%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Pixies" description="In the alternative rock family tree, a big fat line runs from the Pixies directly to the chart-smashing noise pop and grunge that Nirvana broke with in 1991. &lt;i&gt;Surfer Rosa&lt;/i&gt;, the Pixies' 1988 full-length debut of skronked-out, surf-damaged punk-pop, was a revelation to just about everyone who heard it. At first listen the remedial chord progressions, utterly nonsensical lyrics, and bizarre delivery sounded like the flailings of inept college rockers with a psychotropic casualty for a lead singer, but once the hooks were in, there was no escape. The Bostonians reminded everyone how to write a perfect, repetitive song that you knew by heart two seconds in. With wonder-twin powers Black Francis and Kim Deal writing paeans to sexually charged dementia, an idiosyncratic guitar sound, and what sounded like the Jolly Green Giant playing drums, the Pixies took the alt-rock world by storm, releasing four near-perfect records before self-destructing under the weight of their own talent, in 1993, after opening U2's Zoo TV tour. In their wake, Deal went full-time with her side-project the Breeders and began working on &lt;i&gt;Last Splash&lt;/i&gt;, which would eventually go gold in the U.S., and Black -- as Frank Black -- starting penning a solo eponymous debut, which didn't fair so well. In 2004 -- with disparate and storied careers -- Deal, Black Francis, Joey Santiago and David Lovering reunited for a North American tour and several dates at European summer festivals. The group is currently rumored to be working on a new studio album, the first since 1991.
- Mike McGuirk" category="Noise Pop" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/pixies/data.opml?rws=%2Falt-punk%2Findie-alternative%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Metric" description="Currently based out of Toronto, indietronic act Metric actually formed in Brooklyn in 1998. Vocalist Emily Haines and guitarist James Shaw met in a Toronto club after attending a concert by mutual friends and discovering they both hated the show. Their musical bonds established, the two mixed a few of their own songs together, creating what would become &lt;I&gt;The Mainstream&lt;/I&gt;EP, a collection of demos. Upon moving to Brooklyn, they dubbed their project Metric after a sequence that Shaw played on his keyboard. A record deal (and the desire to escape their NYC hovel) then lead them to London. Yet in 2001 their first full-length, &lt;I&gt;Grow Up and Blow Away,&lt;/I&gt; wasn't released due to legal conflicts. Returning to New York, they met drummer Joules Scott-Key (a Texan) and became a trio. However, it took two years before Metric put out their proper debut &lt;I&gt;Old World Underground, Where Are You Now?&lt;/I&gt;, a disc full of new wave nods and punk-funk electronics. In 2005, the group released &lt;I&gt;Live It Out&lt;/I&gt;, a record focused more on guitars than drum machines. The disc was so well-received it scored Metric a slot opening for the Rolling Stones, an experience they now call &quot;surreal.&quot;
- Michele K-Tel" category="'00s Alternative" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/metric/data.opml?rws=%2Falt-punk%2Findie-alternative%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Dashboard Confessional" description="Led by the therapeutic vocals of Chris Carrabba, Dashboard Confessional have earned a fair amount of popularity with heartfelt, unplugged emo for those who can do without the genre's typically hard-hitting guitar theatrics, but value the music's sincerity. And sincerity is where Dashboard Confessional excel: Carraba's heart-on-sleeve vocals and songwriting exude feeling and melody, much to the delight of melancholy teens in search of a like-minded voice. It's a long way from Rites of Spring (or even Sunny Day Real Estate), but it's obvious why so many take this to heart." category="Emo/Hardcore" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/dashboard-confessional/data.opml?rws=%2Falt-punk%2Findie-alternative%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Vampire Weekend" description="Despite a very gothic name, Vampire Weekend is actually a preppy indie-rock band from New York City. The quartet -- which includes singer Ezra Koenig, bassist Chris Baio, drummer Chris Tomson and keyboardist Rostam Batmanglij -- combines jangly rock and Afro-pop. Literate songwriting that's heavy on the happy vibes is combined with swirling guitars and African rhythms; imagine if Paul Simon had a World Studies-majoring love child with Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. Vampire Weekend formed in early 2006 while all four members were still attending Columbia University. Their self-released EP drew high praise from &lt;i&gt;The New York Times&lt;/i&gt;, which called it one of 2007's best debuts. The band has since signed to XL Recordings, and its much-hyped first album was released in early 2008.
- Dan Shumate" category="Indie Pop" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/vampire-weekend/data.opml?rws=%2Falt-punk%2Findie-alternative%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Julian Plenti" description="Julian Plenti is Paul Banks, best known for his other gig as lead singer for post-punk revivalists Interpol. Before churning out a solo album, Banks saw much success with his band, which already had three albums under its belt. His music under the name Julian Plenti was little heard of, though he'd been playing under the moniker off and on since 1998, around the same time Interpol formed in New York City. Nearly a decade later, he finally hooked up with Interpol's first label, Matador Records, to release his debut solo record, 2009's &lt;I&gt;Julian Plenti Is ... Skyscraper&lt;/I&gt;. The album introduced a different side of Banks, albeit still dark. Softening the sharpness of Interpol's post-punk, Banks as Julian Plenti fills his melodies with layers of murky yet beautiful baroque instrumentation.
- Stephanie Benson" category="'00s Alternative" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/julian-plenti/data.opml?rws=%2Falt-punk%2Findie-alternative%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="The Smiths" description="Before the Korns and Limp Bizkits of the world insisted on a daily regime of rage and denial, there was a kinder gentler time when bands could still express unmanly insecurities in ticklish, sexually ambivalent pop songs. The Smiths were the most important of these acts. Their Puckish singer, known simply as Morrissey, warbled and whined about bicycle rides in the country, nervous trysts in the cemetery, and, of course, night after night spent alone. Drawing on an inexhaustible supply of double entendres and naughty insinuations, Morrissey established himself as the Oscar Wilde of his generation -- a genteel mischief-maker and foppish peddler of purple prose. The Smiths' unique sound, however, must be attributed to guitarist Johnny Marr. Spurred on by a distaste for jamming and flash, Marr explored unconventional avenues that led him to the sonic scree of &quot;How Soon Is Now&quot; and the lush jangle of &quot;This Charming Man.&quot; Marr left the Smiths in 1987, forcing Morrissey to embark on a solo career. Apart from a lack of strong hooks due to the absence of Marr, Morrissey's work has consistently carried on the Smiths' sound. In 2006, Marr joined Modest Mouse, who shortly thereafter released &lt;i&gt;We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank&lt;/i&gt;, the Mancunian's first number one-selling album in the U.S.
- Chad Driscoll" category="Jangle Pop" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/the-smiths/data.opml?rws=%2Falt-punk%2Findie-alternative%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Franz Ferdinand" description="Formed in Glasgow in 2001, the quartet didn't release their first EP until 2003. When the &lt;I&gt;Darts Of Pleasure&lt;/I&gt; came out, it was as though their lean, romantic, and often danceable form of post-punk fell right from the pages of a &lt;I&gt;Smash Hits&lt;/i&gt; from twenty years prior. In their formative years, most of the band were students at the Glasgow School of Art and spent their time practicing music at a spot called the Chateau, a music/art space along the lines of Andy Warhol's Factory. The group's smart and slightly oily brand of angular pop was soon embraced by press and fans, whose appetites for a post-punk revival were whetted by the success of bands like Interpol and Hot Hot Heat. They finally released their first full-length in 2004. The LP's unorthodox but unstoppable single &quot;Take Me Out&quot; quickly took off all over the world. In the summer of 2005, Franz Ferdinand built on that success with &lt;I&gt;It Could Be So Much Better&lt;/I&gt;, which actually lived up to its title by bettering their winning debut. The Scots then released their third album in early 2009. Stripping away some of their post-punk roots, the band opted to load &lt;i&gt;Tonight&lt;/i&gt; with disco-punk beats and spacey synths, making it some of their most experimental and upbeat material to date.
- Jon Pruett" category="Post-Punk" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/franz-ferdinand/data.opml?rws=%2Falt-punk%2Findie-alternative%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="The Airborne Toxic Event" description="When aspiring novelist Mikel Jollett was diagnosed with an auto-immune disease, suffered a bad break-up and received the awful news that his mother was diagnosed with cancer all in one week's time, The Airborne Toxic Event was born as a means of coping. Jollett abandoned novel-writing for songwriting and by the end of 2006, he had recruited guitarist/keyboardist Steven Chen, bassist Noah Harmon, drummer Daren Taylor and keyboardist/violinist Anna Bulbrook to help channel the pained-yet-relatable lyrics through their new wave-inspired indie pop musings. With Jollett's literary background, the lyrics read like stories set to music, while their dismal retelling is cloaked by the band's mostly upbeat tune. With ready comparisons to Arcade Fire and Interpol, The Airborne Toxic Event release their self-titled debut in 2008.
- Jen Guyre" category="Indie Pop" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/the-airborne-toxic-event/data.opml?rws=%2Falt-punk%2Findie-alternative%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Arcade Fire" description="At once elegant and driven, the Arcade Fire's music shatters categories like &quot;emo&quot; and even &quot;indie rock.&quot; The Montreal-based band earned lofty praise quickly, forming in mid-2003 and winning a large number of fans within a year and a half. Many of these adorers arrived along with the group's debut full-length release, &lt;I&gt;Funeral,&lt;/I&gt; near the end of 2004. Voted Album of the Year by influential radio station KEXP, the record soon sold well over 100,000 copies (on the small North Carolina label Merge) and received the endorsements of David Bowie and David Byrne, the latter of whom was seen performing &quot;This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)&quot; with them onstage in 2005. If that didn't confer great power on this eccentric Canadian band's brutal and beautiful distorted noise collages, nabbing the cover of the Canadian edition of &lt;I&gt;Time&lt;/I&gt; certainly signaled they'd arrived. The Arcade Fire formed around Win Butler and wife Regine Chassagne, soon growing to five official members and swelling on tour to nine. The combination of moodiness and joy in their semi-orchestral pop-rock coincided with a year in which several loved ones passed away (including Alvino Rey, veteran swing musician and grandfather of singer Butler and his brother, guitarist William) -- thus the title of &lt;I&gt;Funeral&lt;/I&gt; and the music's reflection of ongoing life in the face of sadness. The group continued to tour and record throughout 2005, dazzling Europe and appearing at the Lollapalooza festival in Chicago. After a scheduled trek through the States in the fall of that year, they returned to Quebec and a newly built studio in a former church, where they plotted their next musical instillation while fans bided time with a reissue of the rare early self-titled EP the Arcade Fire had released not all that long ago.
- Jaan Uhelszki" category="Baroque Pop" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/arcade-fire/data.opml?rws=%2Falt-punk%2Findie-alternative%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Bon Iver" description="Bon Iver (aka Justin Vernon) is a singer-songwriter from Eau Claire, Wisconsin. His smoldering, acoustic guitar soundscapes take cues from Will Oldham's side-project Bonnie &quot;Prince&quot; Billy and Iron &amp; Wine. The band name is French for &quot;good winter,&quot; which aptly describes the stark, drifting quality of Vernon's music. Bon Iver's debut album, &lt;i&gt;For Emma, Forever Ago&lt;/i&gt;, was recorded while Vernon spent four months locked away in a cabin in rural Wisconsin, which is reflected in its bleak, barren sound.
- Dan Shumate" category="Singer-Songwriter" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/bon-iver/data.opml?rws=%2Falt-punk%2Findie-alternative%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Blur" description="Formed in 1989 as Seymour at London art school Goldsmiths College, Blur (Damon Albarn, Alex James, Graham Coxon and Dave Rowntree) initially fell between baggy and shoegazing, their 1991 debut &lt;I&gt;Leisure&lt;/I&gt; an uneasy hybrid. Just two years later they delivered the literate, clipped &lt;I&gt;Modern Life Is Rubbish&lt;/I&gt;, winning critical -- if not commercial -- success. Then came &quot;Girls &amp; Boys,&quot; an ironic take on the unreflective hedonism rampant in Britain post-acid house. It struck a chord, climbing to No. 5 in the charts and driving &lt;I&gt;Parklife&lt;/I&gt; triple platinum in the process. In a hectic 18 months, Blur edged out Oasis in the Battle of Britpop when &quot;Country House&quot; beat &quot;Roll With It&quot; to No. 1, only to see new album &lt;I&gt;The Great Escape&lt;/I&gt; drop off the charts. Cue another shift in musical focus, this time to lo-fi indie rock. With it came spats, splits and separations (Albarn and Elastica's Justine Frischmann broke up), but Blur finally cracked America. However, the departure of Graham Coxon in 2002 after recording just one of &lt;I&gt;Think Tank&lt;/I&gt;'s tracks finally called time on the band.
- Jamie Dolling" category="Brit Pop/Brit Rock" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/blur/data.opml?rws=%2Falt-punk%2Findie-alternative%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Citizen Cope" description="Citizen Cope -- born Clarence Greenwood -- ardently and soulfully explores the sounds of blues, hip-hop, rock and country. Richly textured violins play a lonely melody in the midst of acoustic guitar and classic organ, while Greenwood spins lazy yarns as blue as hip-hop lyrics can be. The country bumpkin earnest soul of groups like Outkast and the Goodie Mob is present, as is the slowly rocking blues and hip-hop combination favored by Beck and post-House of Pain Everlast. Everything is harmoniously orchestrated to tell a tragic tale of desperation and greed appropriate for passing time in a boxcar.
- Alex Henning" category="Adult Alternative" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/citizen-cope/data.opml?rws=%2Falt-punk%2Findie-alternative%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Fleet Foxes" description="Drawing from the music of their baby boomer parents, Fleet Foxes dissect the tunes and tones of pioneers like the Beach Boys, Simon &amp; Garfunkel and Crosby, Stills &amp; Nash to create a cushy center of feel-good harmonic pop shimmering with gospel, folk and baroque embellishments. Receiving comparisons to My Morning Jacket and Sub Pop labelmates like Band of Horses and Iron and Wine, the Foxes started getting plenty of buzz in their hometown of Seattle even before the release of their debut album in June 2008. Gathering myriad instruments including acoustic and electric guitars, tom drums, mandolins, bass pedals, organs, dulcimers and their own delicate voices, the quintet revere the traditions of their influences while flaunting their own astute flair for wide-open melodies and lullaby harmonies.
- Stephanie Benson" category="Baroque Pop" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/fleet-foxes/data.opml?rws=%2Falt-punk%2Findie-alternative%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
<outline type="include" text="Elliott Smith" description="Patron saint of indie music, Elliott Smith was once making folk based baroque pop on his own while simultaneously fuzzing-out amps in his former band Heatmiser. Upon &quot;going solo,&quot; Smith's own moderately downtempo songwriting had tastefully expanded and grown with clever arrangements and matured instrumentation. Grand pianos and classically arranged strings took the place of grungy distortion boxes and toy guitars. The overall production was stepped up, but not stylistically compromised. And still, what remained consistent in these recordings was his ability to play the heartstrings better than any instrument in his back-line. An artist who single-handedly redefined the term &quot;singer/songwriter,&quot; Smith influenced countless other bedroom four-trackers as well as a myriad of professional musicians, including Beck Hansen, Bill Callahan (Smog), Damon Gough (Badly Drawn Boy) and Chan Marshall (! Cat Power). Before he could finish what was to be his last album, &lt;I&gt;From A Basement On A Hill&lt;/I&gt;, Smith took his own life on October 21, 2003. His nearly completed posthumous album was self-tracked on Smith's home recording devices, as well as with the infamous Hollywood producer Jon Brion. Collaborator David McConnell, explained that the CD was originally intended by Smith to sound lo-fi and dusty in its final production. However, since Smith's family had legal say as to how the album was to be sequenced and mixed, they handed the project over to engineer/producer Rob Schnapf and Joanna Bolme (an ex girlfriend of Smith's and member of Stephen Malkmus' band the Jicks) to make what they believed were necessary changes. It has since been re-mixed and released to a much-deserved overwhelming critical acclaim as well as a bit of controversy regarding the author's intent.
- Eric Shea" category="Baroque Pop" url="http://feeds.rhapsody.com/elliott-smith/data.opml?rws=%2Falt-punk%2Findie-alternative%2Fartist-chart.opml" />
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