Every week, Hype Monitor wades through the most buzzed-about bands all across the Internet.

The Band: Black Kids
The Buzz: The backlash is on: formerly adored Florida band netted buzz this week for amassing blogosphere bile.
Listen If: You want to hear what every pasty 20something is arguing about on their LiveJournal.
Key Track: "Hit the Heartbreaks," which is all polished pout and pretty chorus.

The Band: Ida Maria
The Buzz: Norwegian vocalist Ida Maria Børli Sivertsen powers through brash power-punk with snide, sneering panache.
Listen If: You've spend the last year wishing someone would show those Scandinavian buzz bands where the volume knob was.
Key Track: One of the hands-down best singles of 2008 (never mind that it technically came out in late '07), "Oh My God" starts like PJ Harvey and explodes into full-on neurotic chaos. Check the video for the full freakout.

The Band: Sic Alps
The Buzz: Take in the trash! Deliciously scuzzy San Fran duo got no time for fancy production.
Listen If: You've got a soft spot for the No-Fi Outta Tune Roughed Up Blues.
Key Track: The blown-out garage number "Message From the Law," which does acid-washed Nuggets rock on a 25-cent budget.

Every week, Hype Monitor wades through the most buzzed-about bands all across the Internet. This week: a few choice picks from some buzzworthy acts on the Hype Machine.

The Band: Wale
The Buzz: DC rapper with nimble flow nips funk and go-go, proving brainy and fun aren't mutually exclusive.
Listen If: You used to go straight from debate meets to nightclub teen nights.
Key Track: "D.C. Gorillaz," with it's wise-ass chorus, "You ain't got a chance, if you ain't got a dance." Wale's Seinfeld-sampling Mixtape About Nothing is available for free at elitaste.com.

The Band: A-Trak
The Buzz: Kanye's touring DJ nets a Nike mixtape and a tiny sliver of the spotlight.
Listen If: You fully believe in the ability of synthesizers to be funky.
Key Track: "Say Whoa," which is that "Oh Yeah" song from Ferris Bueller updated for the 21st Century.

The Band: Seun Kuti
The Buzz: Son of Afrobeat great carries on father's legacy, band, sound.
Listen If: Two drums are two too few, and you often fantasize about creating a James Brown marching band.
Key Track: "Mosquito Song," where scurrying percussion and hazy brass wrestle for supremacy against a busy, bobbing bassline.

Every week, Hype Monitor wades through the most buzzed-about bands all across the Internet. This week: a few choice picks from some buzzworthy acts on the Hype Machine.

The Band: J*Davey
The Buzz: LA electro/soul combo smoke up a sequencer and sigh over the resulting beats.
Listen If: You wish the new Erykah Badu record was longer, or you miss old, weird Prince.
Key Track: "Turn the Lights Out," which delivers big streaks of synth and pulsing rhythms.

The Band: Dead Heart Bloom
The Buzz: Brainchild of singer/songwriter Boris Skalsky, DHB deliver giant-sized guitar noise topped with gianter-size religious cynicism.
Listen If: You think the National and American Music Club are upbeat.
Key Track: "Come Back," a sublime combination of dour, druggy vocals and corkscrewing guitars. It couldn't be easier to hear, either: the band is giving away their entire EP for free.

The Band: Chris Letcher
The Buzz: South African Singer/Songwriter crafts songs that sound like dawn: low and creaky, slowly building to a big burst of light.
Listen If: You're a sucker for tricky orchestration, pleading vocals and big theatrical flourishes. Or you kinda like Arcade Fire.
Key Track: "Deep Frieze," which opens with a twinkle and crescendos with a great boom.

The Band: Ladyhawke
The Buzz: Pouty New Zealand chanteuse (real name: Pip Brown) stimulates your Lauper gland.
Listen If: You can complete this lyric: "I remember hating you for loving me/Riding on the __________."
Key Track: "Back of the Van," a song so terrifically '80s you can almost taste the Aqua Net.

The Band: Tanya Morgan
The Buzz: Never mind the name — Tanya Morgan is a hip-hop trio with an affinity for soul breaks, big beats and complex, conscious lyrics.
Listen If: You can name the four essential elements of hip-hop, and you're bummed that most popular rappers cannot.
Key Track: "Threemcees," which introduces the world to the concept of a "bi-polar bear." Which is perhaps a distant relative to the "Hypochondrioctopus"?

The Band: Black Ghosts
The Buzz: London electro duo gaining traction thanks to a recent Diplo remix.
Listen If: You used to play Colecovision just for the soundtracks.
Key Track: That Diplo remix of "Repetition Kills You," which twists the band's bright bounce down 10 octaves until it sounds like something from Violator.

Every week, Hype Monitor wades through the most buzzed-about bands all across the Internet. This week: a few choice picks from the charts at BlogFreshRadio.

The Band: Cool Kids
The Buzz: Chicago duo do old-school hip-hop with pride, passion and plenty of punchlines.
Listen If: You also miss the sound of an 808, and prefer T La Rock to T-Pain.
Key Track: "What it Is" off the upcoming Bake Sale EP, where the pair freewheel over a track that would do Eric B proud.

The Band: White Williams
The Buzz: Weirdo electro new wave with pitch-bent vocals, LED synths and whole canyons of empty space.
Listen If: You find yourself saying the words "Man, Tubeway Army were so underrated" with alarming frequency.
Key Track: "Violator," whose twinkling electronics and strange spirals of sound will probably make your calculator and your microwave amorous.

The Band: Young Knives
The Buzz: Hip-dork Brit band overloads songs with words, riffs.
Listen If: You really could have used the concept of the "hip dork" 10 or 15 years ago.
Key Track: "Up All Night," where guitars zig-zag over bouncing-ball bass and Henry Dartnell's self-aware Cockney pout.

[Photo: Getty]

Every week, Hype Monitor wades through the most buzzed-about bands all across the Internet. This week: a few choice picks from the charts at BlogFreshRadio.

The Band: Ting Tings
The Buzz: British boy/girl duo dish out dance tracks done up in neon; find themselves scoring iPod ads and Gossip Girl.
Listen If: The first thing you did with GarageBand was make a Lily Allen/Franz Ferdinand mashup.
Key Track: "Shut Up and Let Me Go," which updates the guitar strut of Blondie's "Rapture" with lyrics about getting off and getting angry.

The Band: Ponytail
The Buzz: Bonkers Baltimore band creates chaotic compositions bursting with joy, possibility and life.
Listen If: You're tired of pasty whiners and want music that sounds like a series of exclamation points.
Key Track: The spectacular "Beg Waves," where a breathless strum does battle with vocalist Molly Siegel's euphoric ululations, resulting in a song that lifts the spirit while blowing the mind.

The Band: HEALTH
The Buzz: LA noise band have just dropped a remix album, adding a little rhythm to their sturm und drang.
Listen If: You always thought what free jazz was missing was a wicked backbeat.
Key Track: "Triceratops (Cfcf Remix)," which starts like the Halloween theme and ends with what sounds like a screaming keytar — which is a whole different kind of scary.

[Photo: Getty]

Every week, Hype Monitor wades through the most buzzed-about bands all across the Internet. This week: a few choice picks from the charts at BlogFreshRadio.

The Band: Ratatat
The Buzz: Brooklyn duo makes clever, clattering floor-fillers with nods to both rock and techno.
Listen If: You play guitar along to Daft Punk tracks because you're plagued by the feeling something's missing.
Key Track: "Shiller" is his latest, and it's so controlled and restrained it's almost taunting: nothing but music box synthesizers and an ominous bass thrum.

The Band: This Is Ivy League
The Buzz: Covert crew members on the Cobra Starship go undercover as twee-hugging indiepoppers. In fairness: they were in Ivy League first, but someone has to pay for that Snakes on a Plane song.
Listen If: You do the bulk of your record shopping in the dollar bins at Salvation Army and know your Left Banke from your Free Design.
Key Track: "Love is Impossible," which scoots along on sugared-up percussion, decked out with bleary brass and broad, bright strumming.

The Band: Spiritualized
The Buzz: Rock vets break a long hibernation with a song that trades their druggy majesty for genuine penitnence.
Listen If: You wish there was a little more room for imperfection (and songs about the same) on the pop charts.
Key Track: "Soul on Fire," from the forthcoming Songs in A&E, which is about the best junkie-gospel this side of Marianne Faithfull.

Every week, Hype Monitor wades through the most buzzed-about bands all across the Internet. This week: a few choice picks from the charts at BlogFreshRadio.

The Band: Radio Dept.
The Buzz: Swedish indie poppers who've edged gradually away from shoegaze toward some coy approximation of the Cure's Disintegration
Listen If: You wear black on the outside, because black is how you feel on the inside.
Key Track: "Freddie & the Trojan Horse," from their forthcoming EP of the same name, where dour vocals do battle with thwacking percussion and neon-blue guitars.

The Band: Mr. Gnome
The Buzz: OK, full confession: we didn't even know there was a band called Mr. Gnome until we looked at the BFR charts. And we keep up on this stuff. So, buzz? They're a duo from Cleveland named Mr. Gnome. Any questions?
Listen If: Good god, man, they're called Mr. Gnome! How many more reasons do you need?
Key Track: The excellent "Night of the Crickets," where great swipes of serrated guitar slash across Nicole Barille's gooey vocals. The absolute antidote to all those shrinking violets we've been big upping lately.

The Band: Brendan Canning
The Buzz: Canning is a member of Broken Social Scene, whose solo record Something for All of Us will be released in July.
Listen If: You like pop music scuffed up with grimy guitars, or you are Facebook friends with someone who plays in Broken Social Scene (which, let's face it, you probably are).
Key Track: "Hit the Wall" is the one that's turning up, and it buries Canning's tiny voice deep beneath squawking guitars and groaning bass. It's fevered and frenetic and contains exactly the measure of paranoia you'd expect from someone who belongs to what's essentially a musical cult.

Every week, Hit or Hype wades through the most buzzed-about bands all across the Internet. This week: a few choice picks from the charts at BlogFreshRadio.

The Band: CSS
The Buzz: CSS means Cansei de Ser Sexy, which in turn means "Tired of being sexy." Fittingly, this Brazilian group pairs sly, self-aware lyrics with bright, buoyant pop.
Listen If: You're itching for an update of Cibo Matto's giddy electro.
Key Track: "Rat is Dead (Rage)," which sounds like Sonic Youth if Sonic Youth finally decided to give in and write that radio pop song.

The Band: Sloan
The Buzz: Power-pop vets return with another record of sunshine supersongs.
Listen If: Your idea of "bubblegum pop" is the Raspberries and mid-period Kinks.
Key Track: The Sloan catalog is vast and work exploring, but the current Key Track is "Witch's Wand," where a steady guitar chug is illuminated by bursts of vocal harmony.

The Band: South
The Buzz: Decade-old UK pop band returns with new record, same sound.
Listen If: You spend days dreaming of the intersection of Britpop and indie rock.
Key Track: "Better Things," a light and lovely bit of folk-pop that takes its time arriving at its yearning chorus.

[Photo: Getty]

Every week, Hit or Hype wades through the most buzzed-about bands all across the Internet. This week: a few choice picks from the charts at BlogFreshRadio.

The Band: Santogold
The Buzz: Philly by-way-of-Brooklyn vocalist reinvents '80s pop, garners repeated and inexplicable M.I.A. comparisons.
Listen If: You wish Siouxsie & the Banshees had occasionally killed time with King Tubby.
Key Track: "Lights Out," where bright, skating synths provide the support for Santogold's aching falsetto.

The Band: M83
The Buzz: French producer makes 70mm songs for John Hughes movies yet to be filmed.
Listen If: You like Daydreaming about New Order covers of Kate Bush songs — or vice-versa.
Key Track: "Graveyard Girl," which somehow turns Joy Division's "Atmosphere" into a bright summer pop song. If you're not pumping your fist by the spoken word section ("I'm fifteen years old, and I feel it's already too late to live"), you probably have never had an unrequited teenage crush.

The Band: No Age
The Buzz: L.A. outfit rides chaotic live reputation to create droney, lo-fi albums that restore much-needed scuzz and atonality to the increasingly (and depressingly) polite world of indie rock.
Listen If: You think melody is optional (we do, too) and prefer volume to structure.
Key Track: "Eraser," which boasts serrated, detuned no-wave guitars, sloppy, off-tempo percussion, hollered vocals and buckets and buckets of charm.