February 24, 2008 – With her gently bewitching songs about bad dreams and broken hearts- not to mention her flaxen hair, snow white skin, and searching blue eyes- teenage singer/songwriter Laura Marling is proud to come off more Wuthering Heights than The Hills. "I've always loved books by the Brontë sisters," purrs Marling, who was raised in the sleepy village of Eversley. "I love Jane Austen, too. I'm more influenced by people like her than by pop culture." But it hasn't always been easy for this Brontë girl to fit into a Britney world. "The other students at school didn't like my music," says the 18-year-old. "To them, being a folksinger was like, 'Oh, whatever.' They'd never come across anything like it." Then again, not everyone has a father who chooses Neil Young's junkie blues "The Needle and the Damage Done" as the first song to teach his little girl.

February 1, 2008 – In a nutshell: The Memphis native's musical career got off to an early start after his dad gave him an ultimatum in 1995: Do your homework or give up your guitar. The decision was a no-brainer for Reatard (born Jay Lindsey), whose moniker comes from a misspelling on an early homemade cassette. "I moved out of my dad's house and never showed up for the first day of grade nine," he says. "Instead of going to school, I made records." One of his spring-loaded punk bashings caught the ear of Eric Friedl from veteran Memphis scuzz rockers the Oblivians, who decided to put out the then-17-year-old's first seven-inch single. "Back then, I couldn't believe I was drinking with a guy from my favorite band," says Reatard, now 27.

February 1, 2008 – It doesn't sound very cool, but D.A. Wallach and Maxwell Drummey, the Harvard alums who make up harmony-loving pop duo Chester French, owe their success to solid study habits. "We got deep into the canon of classic rock in the summer between our freshman and sophomore years," says Wallach, 22, whose ghostly pallor, goofy grin, and scarlet hair make him resemble a modern-day Archie. "Listening really closely to the Beatles and Bowie helped us learn the basics of songwriting." The homework paid off. A demo the band recorded at school found its way to Don C., Kanye West's comanager. Days later, a record deal was on the table. Competing offers quickly followed from Jermaine Dupri and Pharrell Williams. Were these British Invasion obsessives surprised to find themselves being courted by some of hip-hop's biggest names?

November 23, 2007 – Last winter, MGMT began to think the world might end. So Andrew Vanwyngarden and Ben Goldwasser did what any reasonable neo-hippie music majors would do: They decamped to a desolate sliver of Brooklyn and concocted some seriously freaky songs. "Something's about to go down," explains Goldwasser, a paisley headband keeping his brown curls in place. "Things are going to change in a way nobody will be able to fix." Vanwyngarden concurs. "The apocalypse is in the zeitgeist," he says between sips of stinky Kombucha. "But it doesn't have to be about death and destruction; it could be the shattering of a mass hallucination...where the human race realizes its true potential!" Since teaming up in 2002 at Connecticut's Wesleyan University, Goldwasser and Vanwyngarden, both 24, have done more to induce visions than destroy them.

November 15, 2007 – 1 Cats and dogs are for pussies. He prefers to play with mountain lions and snakes, because "earning the trust of an animal that might eat you in the wild is a defining and rewarding experience." 2 Don't solo on the snow. Playing guitar on cocaine is "as awkward as the first time you try to ski." Still, he takes to the powder like Bode Miller. 3 Crack, not that wack? After smoking rock with Megadeth's Dave Mustaine, he comes up with some "major heavy-metal riffs, just fucking dark and heavy as hell." 4 How to pilfer a python from a pet store. The snake lover's method involved "wrapping them around my wrists and then putting my jacket on, making sure that they were nestled high enough on my forearm" before walking out. 5 Date a porn star. Really, you should.