Modest Mouse started this year the same way The Flaming Lips started 2002-a band whose optimistic indie rock had, for years, deemed them the next big thing. Finally, after a string of critically acclaimed albums which had never amounted to a commercial success, the Lips pushed through with Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots. This was echoed two years later by Modest Mouse, when Good News for People Who Like Bad News brought the band from indie icons to mainstream ones. Modest Mouse has effectively become this year's Flaming Lips.
There are only so many niches to go around, and new artists are reclaiming them all the time. Here's our guide to the current crop of musicians taking up some very important slots.
The Hives are the new Nirvana
For an aesthetic that defined a time period in dress, style and music, there were very few good grunge bands. Nirvana was the most popular band squarely inside the genre and the lion's share of its talent. Likewise, with the recent rise of garage music, the Hives didn't just start the movement, they are the movement. From the second-tier Datsuns to the third-tier Vines to cautiously unremarkable Strokes, the Hives released the revival's first great album and, two years later, its second.
Interpol is the new Soundgarten
Likewise, Interpol sound like Joy Division in the way that Soundgarten and Alice in Chains sounded like grunge-just enough for the trendiness to obscure their talent. Interpol are gifted artists who will forever be viewed as gifted mimics unless they start moving their own way.
Jessie Malin is the new Ryan Adams
It is a nice story. Musician works hard frontlining his band that spans across multiple genres. Band can never really break into mainstream, band breaks up, lead singer becomes solo acoustic folksy rock musician.
This is Ryan Adams' story, and it is up-and-comer Jesse Malin's story as well. Ryan Adams got out of his alternative-country band Whiskeytown, in order to work solo and met mainstream success when \New York, New York,"" from his Gold album became a modest hit. When Jesse Malin parted with his glam punk band D Generation, Adams mentored him and helped him carve out a style in Ryan's own image.
Adams produced Malin's first album, the criminally overlooked The Fine Art of Self Destruction, and Adams unique touch is there. Malin quickly adapted to Adams' style of amazing songwriting spanning across both rock songs and slower story based songs.
Their most recent efforts were even similar in concept. They both made odes to '80's rock with Ryan's aptly titled ""Rock N Roll,"" and Jesse's ""The Heat."" While their takes on the material turned out vastly different, their mutual influence on each other is readily evident.
Howard Dean is the new Strokes
Neither Howard Dean nor the Strokes outstanding bands or politicians. They were just the first to say ""It's okay to listen to rock 'n' roll and be angry at George W. Bush.""
Xiu Xiu are the new Joy Division
Ah, the price of creativity. Spewing forth brilliance seems easy for people like Jamie Stewart and Ian Curtis. Both Stewart, of the increasingly important band Xiu Xiu, and Ian Curtis, front-man for the seminal Joy Division, use (or used in Ian's case) their music as an outlet for their feelings of isolation, disillusion, and oppressive misery. These men lie in depths that few of us will ever understand; but it's a fact that their melancholy makes for some stunning, deeply affecting music.
Xiu Xiu's recent album, Fabulous Muscles, is the bands' most accessible. Stewart's theatrical delivery, moving from fragile whispers to primal screams, is the bands biggest strength. This, coupled with the bands' melodic guitar and an array of electronic blips and squalls, all coalesce into an artistic unit that is a conduit for tension and the complexity of sorrow. Joy Division existed in the same tense realm, but they illustrated Ian Curtis' depression with a more defiant, more overtly punk edge. Minimalist drumming, cold synth lines, tortured lyrics and Curtis' legendary monotone comprised the bulk of Joy Divisions' influential gloom. Most poignant, though, is when either band allows the darkness to abate; it's then that the delicate joy below becomes all the more incredible to witness.
The Walkmen are the new Pearl Jam
In 15 years Pearl Jam have released an album's worth of worthwhile songs. They are the undisputed kings of filler. Likewise, the Walkmen have released few amazing songs, but even more middling ones. If Bows and Arrows was an album of ""The Rat,"" The Walkmen would be in the upper-echalon of bands. Instead, their inconsistency will keep them stuck in limbo between average and great.
Prefuse 73 is the new DJ Shadow
DJ Shadow has created a legacy that crate-diggers like Prefuse 73 must have honored. But being the first of your kind isn't without its drawbacks; those that Shadow influenced are now nipping at his heels. Prefuse 73, among others like RjD2 and DJ Danger Mouse, is at the forefront.
Shadow's vast, warm, crackling record collection is the paint he uses on his musical canvas. Josh Davis, a.k.a. Shadow, makes turn-table symphonies; grand, multi-part pieces that reference all types of music while staying entrenched in hip-hop territory. Give the man a killer bass groove and some drums, maybe some vocal samples, and he'll give you a spacey, mind-bending journey into musical history.
Prefuse 73 takes Shadow's formula, throws into his laptop, blends it at high speed, and spits out more immediate, pixilated doses of hip-hop love. Prefuse never relies on the strength of a groove to carry the listener along; there are always new rhythmic, textural, and melodic changes around every corner. Also, he treats rapped vocals unlike anybody else; Prefuse will weave a chopped-up vocal sample into the tapestry of one of his tracks. His beats are as thought-provoking as they are ass-shaking. DJ Shadow should take notes; his students are refining his lessons and are now taking him to school.
Kanye West is the new Pharrell Williams
In the last couple of years, we've seen the following pattern emerge from many hip-hop artists on the MTV circuit: producer starts career making fantastic beats for other artists, building up his own fame in the process; producer decides to branch out and make an album as an MC; producer-turned-MC, new hit album in tow, appears in videos for virtually every other artist in his particular genre.
Sound familiar? It should. P. Diddy, back in his Puff Daddy heyday, was one of the first to perform this feat, producing for, most notably, the late Notorious B.I.G. before securing his own fame with the release of No Way Out in 1997. After that, it was Puffy fever.
A similar thing happened with Pharrell Williams, one half of the producing crew The Neptunes. Williams and partner Chad Hugo achieved fame by producing myriad artists ranging from Ol' Dirty Bastard to 'N Sync. The two, along with MC Shay, then created an album as N.E.R.D., and Williams' fame skyrocketed, landing him spots in videos for songs by Snoop Dogg, Clipse and even Puffy himself.
Now the music-listening public has a new beat-making sweetheart in Kanye West. West began his career making beats for Jay-Z and Talib Kweli, among others, before releasing College Dropout in 2004. These days, one can't go 15 minutes without seeing Kanye's face plastered all over videos for people like Twista and Dilated Peoples, the latest in the emerging trend of producers tired of having their faces hidden from public and overcompensating by making themselves omnipresent.
-Adam Dylewski, Kevin Nelson, Eric Reinert, Joe Uchill
