Who: Classically trained singer/songwriter Shara Worden, who mixed her love of strings with her downtown New York aesthetic for her second album A Thousand Shark's Teeth.

Sounds Like: Bjork gone minimalist, with a bit of American chamber pop sheen thrown in for good measure. "I listen to probably 98% pop music," explains Worden. "I think that whatever you put in your body is probably what’s going to come out more. So for me, my songs are just tunes. The way I see them relating to classical music is that I wanted songs that were drawing more from Debussy and Ravel, songs where there’s something that’s very impressionistic and about mood and color rather than 'Here comes the chorus!'"

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Who: Minnesota folk king Mason Jennings, who gets spiritual and explores where babies come from on his new album In the Ever.

Sounds Like: Having just signed to Brushfire Records, the easy comparison is Jennings' good friend, current tour mate and Brushfire owner Jack Johnson. But Jennings also draws from the Minnesota rock scene, Comes a Time-era Neil Young and his favorite band, Led Zeppelin — all channeled through acoustic guitars. "Whenever I have electric guitars going, my voice just disappears. I'm too mellow," Jennings says of his aspirations to be Robert Plant.

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Who: Sydney, Australia dance-punk duo the Presets, whose second album Apocalypso has proven to have more staying power on the Aussie charts than Madonna and Mariah.

Sounds Like: The Rapture with an army of '80s synths. On Apocalyspo, the Presets revel in the darker, more cosmic realm of dance music while still having fun and involuntarily getting people in the mood to move. There's also punk and new wave elements, but just don't call them "Indietronica." "I kind of hate that term," says drummer Kim Moyes.

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Who: Indie-pop chanteuse Lykke Li, a worldly Swede whose infectious debut Youth Novels was buzzing long before its Stateside release in May.

Sounds Like: Dance music with a devilish wink. With production by Bjorn Yttling, Youth Novels’ sugary pop, biting lyrics and breathy vocals make heartbreak sound sweet. “I just do music, I don’t know where it comes from or what it is,” says Li, whose influences include Madonna, Velvet Underground, Bob Dylan and hip-hop, of her spontaneous blend. “It just is.”

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• The daughter of "free-minded old hippies," as she calls her parents, Li, 22, grew up between Stockholm, Sweden, and a mountaintop home in the South of Portugal where “You can grow weed in the backyard,” she recalls of her unconventional upbringing. “Maybe you’re not allowed to say that?”

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Who: Seattle's harmonic five piece Fleet Foxes, who follow-up a critically-acclaimed EP and intense live performances with their self-titled debut album.

Sounds Like: A mixture of fellow Sub Poppers Band of Horses and Iron & Wine, Fleet Foxes create harmonic pop jams. Think CSNY performing Pet Sounds. "I'm just a sucker for harmonies," says frontman Robin Pecknold.

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Who: Rap-rock six piece Flobots, a Denver collective led by self-described "Jesus meets Huey P. Newton" emcee Jonny 5.

Sounds Like: Linkin Park with Rage Against the Machine's Zach de la Rocha and his political leanings at the microphone and a violinist building the tension. Jonny 5 raps about topics like human rights, globalization and drug legalization on the band's major label debut Fight with Tools.

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Who: The Tings Tings, a New Waving boy/girl duo whose private rave-ups in Manchester had A&R people, record producers and even Rick Rubin personally asking the band for tickets to their shows.

Sounds Like: "We're complete pop freaks," says singer-guitarist Katie White, and she and drummer Jules De Martino back up the claim on their debut album We Started Nothing by combining cardboard-stiff beats, staccato guitar plinks and cheerleader-style chants with Blondie-esque energy.

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Who: Tokyo Police Club, a Toronto quartet who played to audiences at the Coachella, Lollapalooza and Glastonbury festivals before they turned twenty-one or even released their debut album.

Sounds Like: Too poppy to be post-punk but too clean to be garage-rock, TPC marry bright keyboards and the buoyant voice of singer/bassist Dave Monk into perfect danceable two-minute tunes on their debut album Elephant Shell.

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Who: Sam Champion, a quartet of boisterous New Yorkers eager to play you the songs that got them kicked out of every practice facility in Brooklyn.

Sounds Like: Ryan Adams covering songs off Pavement's Wowee Zowee. On their second album Heavenly Bender, Sam Champion genre jumps from song to song, joyfully morphing elements of raw punk and twangy roots rock with Beck-like precision. "We're just trying to make music that we'd listen to. Crunchy guitars, weird parts, beautiful harmonies and songs you can sing along with,” says singer/guiarist Noah Chernin.

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Who: Melbourne, Australia's Cut Copy, an indie electro-pop trio who, after touring Down Under with Daft Punk, just released your new favorite summer album In Ghost Colours.

Sounds Like: Gary Numan on Prozac and ecstasy. The band adds sunny hooks and synth waves to sonic collages reminiscent of their countrymen the Avalanches. In Ghost Colours also has an eye towards the dance floor, thanks to the DFA's Tim Goldworthy, who produced the album. "Tim encouraged us to try using weird instruments we wouldn't have tried otherwise, and we had access to all the DFA guitar pedals, so it was a real opportunity to experiment," says frontman and multi-instrumentalist Dan Whitford.

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