Who: Anya Marina, a pixie-ish Michigan-born California gal who ditched a sputtering film career (100 Girls, anyone?) to become a local disc jockey. Honing her songwriting chops by immersing herself in music all day allowed her to claim the San Diego local open-mike crown; a song on the Grey's Anatomy soundtrack called "Miss Halfway" scored her a national audience.

Sounds Like: The dozen songs on Slow & Steady Seduction: Phase II are a mixture of Liz Phair sex appeal and Boswell Sisters cabaret with a dash of Jung. "You can have a side to you that's overt and raw, but usually it's reserved for the bedroom or your innermost thoughts of your mind," she tells Rolling Stone. "Some artists are used to going there and that's part of their shtick. I didn't want to put on airs." She credits the intensity of her singing on "Afterparty At Jimmy's" to turning out the lights in the studio and taking her shirt off. "It was fun; it was nice."

Vital Stats:

• Marina's father is a Jungian psychologist who, instead of asking how her homework was coming along, would probe her about how her relationships were developing. If he were to ask her that question today, the answer would apparently be: slowly. Marina was recently on her fifth date with a guy who was trying to talk through why things weren't working out between them. "It was a fucking three-hour long conversation," she says. "I'm thinking 'dude, you've never even tried to kiss me and we're talking about why we're not dating.' Sometimes you can't talk it out. Just shut the fuck up and throw me on the bed."

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Who: The Vivian Girls, three Brooklyn-via-New Jersey gals who went from forming to opening for Sonic Youth and Yo La Tengo to landing on year-end critics' list in just over a year.

Sounds Like: With 10 songs clocking in under 25 minutes, their debut album is a flash flood of surf punk, girl group croon and heavy reverb. Inspirations like the Wipers, Nirvana and the Shangri-La's are evident on songs like the poppy but abrasive "Going Insane" and super-catchy "Where Do You Run To." "When we started out, we just wanted to be a really, really fast band with really short songs," guitarist-singer Cassie Ramone jokes. "That was our original game plan. Now we're trying to write songs that are longer than two minutes. We're aiming for two-and-a-half minute songs."

Vital Stats:

• Ramone and bassist Kickball Katy formed the band in 2007 after first meeting in high school. "We met at a Weezer concert," Ramone says. They recently recruited Katy's college friend Ali Koehler to step in as drummer. Cassie Ramone got her nom de rock after what she calls an obsession with the Ramones' Rock N Roll High School, while Katy's nickname has a more mysterious origin. "In 2002, I went to college and joined the Super Secret Kickball Society," Katy says. "But I can't talk about it."

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Who: Neo-soulstress Adele, a 20-year-old Londonite whose debut album 19 became the surprise hit of the Grammys after getting nominations for Best New Artist and Record of the Year.

Sounds Like: Like U.K. exports Amy Winehouse and Duffy, Adele brings a retro R&B sound with a hint of "heartbroken soul," as she's dubbed it. The style is evident on her hit "Chasing Pavements." The song was inspired by a bitter breakup that soaks into the fiber of 19: After discovering her boyfriend was cheating on her, Adele punched him in the face at a pub and promptly got thrown out. "As I was running away, the phrase 'chasing pavements' came to me," Adele remembers. "I sang it into my phone, went home and got three chords together."

Vital Stats:

• Adele isn't your typical pop star, with her thick British accent, a heavy Marlboro habit and a relaxed attitude about her un-pop-star body. "She's not going to get anywhere — she's a fat girl," Adele recalls her detractors saying. In fact, Adele first considered a job in A&R before recording a demo, which grabbed the attention of XL Records. "I went from thinking I could get a scouting job — then they said 'We want to sign you.' "

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Who: The Veronicas, an Australian pop duo named after the Archies Comic featuring twin sisters Jessica and Lisa Origliasso, who are hoping to bring their huge success Down Under into the States with a little help from the Jonas Brothers.

Sounds Like: On their second album Hook Me Up, the Veronicas make the leap from teenybopper rock to electro-pop similar to the Sounds and CSS. "That whole indie electro scene was coming up and in a mainstream way we wanted to bring that out in our music," Lisa says of the band's new aesthetic, which immediately resulted in a Number One single, Hook's opening track "Untouched," in their home continent. Onstage though, Jessica says, "Our shows are a lot more rock, we like to keep that alive."

Vital Stats:

• Over the span of only two albums, the sisters have already worked with an all-star lineup of talent including Swede pop god Max Martin, new American Idol judge Kara Dioguardi, Grammy-winning songwriter Billy Sternberg and producer Toby Gad. During their first tour of the U.S. in 2006, the Veronicas' opening act was some little known band called the Jonas Brothers. The Veronicas returned the favor, opening for the JoBros during their Burning Up Jaunt in 2008.

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Who: Brooklyn's Semi Precious Weapons, a quartet of foul-mouthed, heavy-riffing glam rockers led by rambunctious frontman Justin Tranter.

Sounds Like: Tranter is like Adam Ant, T.Rex's Marc Bolan and Ziggy Stardust wrapped into one, singing lead on AC/DC's Back In Black. On the band's debut album We Love You, which features "Magnetic Baby" and "Her Hair Is On Fire," Tranter's life's-a-party lyrics and cocky swagger takes center stage over riffs ripped from the Knack's "My Sharona." "There’s 10 songs on our record and nine of them are about how fantastic I am," Tranter says. "In different settings, different time periods, different hats, things like that."

Vital Stats:

• Before signing with Razor & Tie, the band self-funded the release of We Love You with the money earned from Tranter's jewelry line, Fetty. Tranter has sold over 100,000 items of jewelry in stores like Barney's and Urban Outfitters. "As a band, we're still broke," Tranter reports, "but as a jewelry designer, no."

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Who: Bon Iver, the nom de plume of Justin Vernon, who isolated himself in a cabin during a harsh Wisconsin winter and emerged with 2008's most buzzed-about folk album, For Emma, Forever Ago, a set of nine songs adored by music critics and Grey's Anatomy fans alike.

Sounds Like: Picture Nick Drake if the Pink Moon singer pulled a Henry David Thoreau and ensconced himself in the woods. For Emma is an icy moonscape of an album, with Vernon layering vocal track over vocal track, harmonizing his eerie falsetto with itself along to chopped and spliced acoustic guitar on songs like "Flume" and "Creature Fear."

Vital Stats:

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Who: North Carolina's Annuals, a sextet of indie rockers that are getting melodic on their second album, Such Fun, which amazingly features cover art by PBS painter Bob Ross.

Sounds Like: The Tar Heel State's version of the Arcade Fire, with singer Adam Baker leading a small army of multi-instrumentalists. "We focused more on the song," Baker said of this album compared to the band's debut, the critically-acclaimed Be He Me. "We'll listen to parts of the songs for awhile, then each member of the band will come together and find what fits well with the song. We just tried to keep in more balanced on this record." The result is a less experimental but no less energetic and entertaining sophomore disc.

Vital Stats:

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Who: The Knux, a pair of brothers from New Orleans' Ninth Ward who show their band geek chops on their debut Remind Me in Three Days....

Sounds Like: With influences as far ranging as Led Zeppelin and the Cash Money crew, the Knux mix experimental Native Tongues rap with live instruments and the sample savviness of Portishead to form supercatchy tunes with densely referential lyrics. "I can't listen to new hip-hop — it's too fucking clean," Alvin "Rah Almillio" Lindsey says. "We want to be extra-grimy, extra-raw. That's why we compare ourselves to the Strokes."

Vital Stats:

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Who: Philadelphia soul singer Jazmine Sullivan, who at the age of 21 has already gained fans like Kanye West, duetted with Stevie Wonder and released her first album Fearless.

Sounds Like: Sullivan's voice recalls both Mary J. Blige and Lauryn Hill, and on the Missy Elliott-produced Fearless, Sullivan jumps from roots reggae on "Need U Bad" to the girl group sound of "One Night Stand" to the Winehouse-esque "Bust Your Windows," a song that made Kanye West proclaim on his blog "This is my favorite song right now!!!"

Vital Stats:

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Who: Deerhunter, a quartet of Atlanta shoegazers that follow indie acclaim and opening for Nine Inch Nails with their most accessible album to date, Microcastle (read our review here).

Sounds Like: Deerhunter combine My Bloody Valentine's atmospherics, Sonic Youth's knack for experimentation and the girl group vibe that channels Phil Spector's Wall of Sound. Microcastle features everything from billowing dream pop like "Little Kids" to twitchy dance rock on "Nothing Ever Happens." "I listen to music every waking hour — silence makes me uncomfortable," says singer Bradford Cox of his wide-ranging influences.

Vital Stats:

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