It's widely reported how much the wealthiest pop stars make. Pick up a fi nancial magazine and you'll read about the 2007 earnings of the Rolling Stones ($88 million), U2 ($30 million), and Britney Spears ($9 million). Even Elvis Presley took in $49 million last year -- and he's been dead for 30 years.

There's a new hip-hop/dance hybrid blowing up in the windy city. With a sense of unbridled fun not seen since rap's golden age, this new crew cherry-picks from two decades of club music, creating a gangsta-free, party-igniting sound that's made for inciting dance-floor riots.

For most of the '90s, Stephen Malkmus may have been the perpetually smirking face of indie rock. Pavement, the quintet he formed in his hometown of Stockton, California, with fellow singer/guitarist Scott Kannberg, became the figureheads of a scene, as passionate about elegantly formed pop songs as they were about noise, chaos, and diffidence.

Franklin, Tennessee -- 30 minutes south of Nashville – is one of the wealthiest towns in one of the nation's wealthiest counties. Brad Paisley, Carrie Underwood, Miley Cyrus, and Sheryl Crow live around here. So does half of the contemporary Christian-music industry.