While writing his fourth record, Mike Skinner — the indie British MC who calls himself the Streets — started from scratch after cutting an original batch of tracks. "They just weren't good enough," Skinner says. "There was one about a donkey and another about the devil." Working for the first time with a live band, the disc he eventually finished is packed with pub-friendly shout-alongs ("Heaven For the Weather") and fat-bottomed, club-ready jams ("The Way of the Dodo"). "My albums tend to sound like the very last thing I wouldn't do," he says. "I'm always rebelling really. It's another way of getting away from the album I did before."

Check out all of the albums in the 2008 Fall Music Preview