Rolling Stone's Artists to Watch: The Rockers and Rappers Who Will Dominate 2007

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The way The Academy Is...look at it, there's a battle for the ears of young rock fans. "When kids walk into Target or Wal-Mart, they're faced with the choice between groups like us and Fall Out Boy and My Chemical Romance or these shit-burger cock-rock bands like Hinder and Nickelback," says guitarist Mike Carden, whose pop-smart emo band is poised to follow Fall Out Boy and Panic! at the Disco as the next major success story for Fueled by Ramen records, which releases TAI's second LP, Santi, in early April. "With any luck, these kids will choose us. That other stuff, it's just bad."

THE FORMULA (Fall Out Boy - Fat Guy) + Skid Row = The Academy Is...

SOUND Santi — the follow-up to TAI's 2005 debut, Almost Here — combines emo's heart-on-sleeve melodrama with a hard-rock swagger on memorable cuts such as "We've Got a Big Mess on Our Hands," "Bulls in Brooklyn," "Same Blood" and the sweeping ballad "Everything We Had."

MUST-HAVE TRACK "Seed"
This anthemic emo tune bares the tender underbelly of TAI's brash rock & roll pomp.

THE BIRTH OF A NATION While in high school, Carden and Academy frontman William Beckett hung out at Back to the Office, a club in Chicago's northwest suburbs that hosted early shows by Fall Out Boy and other bands in the city's tight knit post-hardcore scene. "The crowd was still really small," says Beckett, 22, a lithe pretty boy. "Every week, there would be the same fifteen kids there, and now those same fifteen kids are in the bands we tour with today." The pair recruited a few other local musicians and recorded their debut for Fueled by Ramen. As online buzz built, a series of tours with Something Corporate, the All-American Rejects and labelmates Fall Out Boy put the band on the map, helping push sales of Almost Here past 200,000 copies. This spring, the group is touring again with FOB, "But this time we're playing arenas," says Carden, 22.

LOST IN TRANSIT After winding down more than two years on the road with a grueling summer on 2006's Warped Tour, the Academy Is...headed to Los Angeles to team with producer Butch Walker on a new record. "On the flight there, I was writing in my lyric book," recalls Beckett. "It was the notebook I'd been using to scribble down my chicken-scratch ideas all summer. Then I realized I left it on the plane and completely freaked out." The first morning of recording, the rest of the band headed to the studio, and Beckett stayed in his room, panicking. "The music was going great, but the days were counting down until I had to start vocals. I moved into a dingy motel and did the rest of my writing there," he says. "I discovered that I have to be isolated to get to that level of creativity. I wouldn't want to lose my lyric book before the next record, but I'm actually glad it turned out the way it did, because there's something really spontaneous about the record as a result." JENNY ELISCU

Next: Mika

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Somewhere in the cosmos, Freddie Mercury must be happy. His legacy lives on in the hands of Mika, the British hitmaker who brings his operatic vocals and grandiose piano theatrics to tracks like "Grace Kelly." Mika originally trained to be an opera singer. But at twenty-three, he's found his calling in pop music, bringing his flamboyant style to everything he does — even his live shows have featured circus performers. "I always knew I'd be part of this illusion-making profession," he declares. "If you're a freak, you have to build a circus around yourself. And then maybe other freaks will come and join your show."

THE FORMULA (Freddie Mercury x George Michael) + The Circus = Mika

SOUND Mika is not shy about showing off his multi-octave voice, letting his falsetto fly over piano ditties with a heavy flavor of music-hall camp. His U.K. Number One debut album, Life in Cartoon Motion, is packed with the kind of pop songs that Mika proudly calls commercial. "The advantage of commercial songwriting is there's no time-wasting," he says. "You have ten words to make a whole movie. You must build something different out of the same basic Legos."

MUST-HAVE TRACK "Grace Kelly"
An over-the-top piano ditty, full of giddy falsetto and music-hall-singalong spirit.

THE OUTSIDER Mika grew up in an artistic London household, with a Lebanese mother and an American father. He had endless trouble at school, suffering from intense dyslexia and bullying from the other kids. "I was this eleven-year-old who couldn't read or write, and songwriting was the first way I ever had to communicate," he says. "It became a refuge for me." He began a strict regimen of voice and piano. "My teacher was a martinet," he recalls. "Before I could even open my mouth to sing, I had to do an hour of breathing exercises and yoga." The fledgling opera singer eventually went to London's Royal College of Music: "By day, I was surrounded by snobs who thought that classical music was the only real music — if it wasn't written down, it didn't exist. Then at night I'd go to some indie show where everyone was just as big of a snob. Except they believed everything had to be jangly and grungy and British. I was a mutt — rejected by both worlds." ROB SHEFFIELD

Next: Lavender Diamond

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Becky Stark, the voice behind the Los Angeles folk-pop group Lavender Diamond, has been planning a musical revolution since she was a kid. "I grew up having so much faith in pop music," Stark recalls. "When Purple Rain came out, my mom let me stay home so I could listen to it." With the May release of Imagine Our Love, Stark — whose utopian ideology would come off as flaky if it weren't for her endearingly wide-eyed enthusiasm — finally has the chance to bring her romantic take on pop to the people. "Having the radio corrupted by sounds that were an insult to my ears, I just reached a point where I was like, 'Fuck this!''the thirty-year-old declares. "If nobody else is going to try, then I'll try."

THE FORMULA (The Carpenters - Anorexia) + Idealism = Lavender Diamond

SOUND On Imagine Our Love, Stark's crystalline soprano is showcased against a background of hypnotically rhythmic piano, guitar and drums. It's a formula the band has developed since last year's pretty but precious EP The Cavalry of Light. "I became totally obsessed with making something that's clear — you can hear the words and the melody and it's simple, like Linda Ronstadt," the singer says.

MUST-HAVE TRACK "Side of the Lord"
A country-pop hymn for the damaged hipster heart.

PEACE TRAIN While the band was touring Europe this winter with the Decemberists, Stark had to answer lots of skeptical questions about her hippie ideals. "Journalists would ask me, 'Is this a joke when you talk about peace?' It's like, wow, what a world it is that I'm weird for talking about peace and love," says Stark, a classically trained singer who studied literary theory at Brown before she began performing as Lavender Diamond in 2003. "I really believe in the power of music to guide culture. With our music, we just want to bring joy to people. It's a pretty simple plan." ELIZABETH GOODMAN

Next: Rich Boy

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Long before he was a smooth-voiced rhymer, Marece "Rich Boy" Richards got a musical education in his Mobile, Alabama, church. "My mother said I had to sing," says the twenty-three-year-old, "but I chose to play drums — I thought singing was gay." Richards was also exposed to Mobile's less godly side — notably the "crackheads and alcoholics" he saw around his father's liquor store. These experiences inform the lyrics on his debut, Rich Boy, which already has a hit single, "Throw Some D's." "I was surprised," Richards says of his success. "But it was a good surprise."

THE FORMULA Young Jeezy + Academic Skills = Rich Boy

SOUND Rich Boy is a big, brawling Southern hip-hop record, with Richards setting his hook-filled drawls over killer beats — with help from guests like Andre 3000 and John Legend and producers like Lil Jon. He also got key assistance from Interscope producer Polow da Don, who discovered Richards and helped get him signed. "I know for a fact this record will be the new hot thing," Richards says.

MUST-HAVE TRACK "Throw Some D's"
The rapper drops rhymes about tricking out his Cadillac on this blazing hit.

HIGHER ED Richards' rap career began at Alabama's Tuskegee University, where he studied mechanical engineering. But after hearing homemade beats in his dorm, he decided to become a hip-hop producer. Armed with cash he earned selling weed, Richards made a CD of beats; on a lark, he rapped on one of the songs, "Cold as Ice." After he passed along the CD to a DJ, "Cold as Ice" became a local hit. "I thought people would ask, 'Who did that beat?' " he says. "Instead, people were like, 'Who is that rapping?'" CHRISTIAN HOARD

Next: The Fratellis

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Chances are, you've heard the Fratellis' biggest hit — the addictively catchy "Flathead" — and you didn't even know it. But with the appearance of the giddy punk confection in the newest iPod commercial, this Glasgow trio is getting a rousing introduction to American listeners. "I suppose it's a corporate thing," singer-songwriter-guitarist Jon Fratelli says of the band's choice to do the ad, "but if it's good enough for Dylan. . . ."

THE FORMULA (The Libertines - Self-Destruction) + iPod = The Fratellis

SOUND The Fratellis recorded their debut album, Costello Music (named after their old rehearsal space, not Elvis), in Los Angeles with Tony Hoffer (Beck, Supergrass). The record is a thirteen-song onslaught of deceptively observant lyrics, nonsensical but singalong choruses and a cheery blend of ska-ish horns, pop piano and punk guitar chords that calls to mind a more radio-friendly Libertines.

MUST-HAVE TRACK "Chelsea Dagger"
There are more raucous choruses than lyrics in this infectious romp.

MYTHMAKERS The Fratellis may be new to the States, but the band has already been feted in the U.K. as the latest in a long line of groups dubbed the "Next Oasis." They just won the Brit Award (the U.K.'s version of a Grammy) for British Breakthrough Act, beating out fellow nominees such as Corinne Bailey Rae, the Kooks and Lily Allen. And what about reports of vicious feuds with other It bands such as the Arctic Monkeys, Franz Ferdinand or goth punks the Horrors? "It's total bullshit," says Jon, 27, who dismisses claims that the band is as concerned with building the Fratellis' image as it is in rocking out. "Anybody that's got time to think about creating a rock myth around themselves isn't spending enough time writing and playing." ELIZABETH GOODMAN

Next: Charlotte Gainsbourg

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Charlotte Gainsbourg is better known as an actress than a musician — her films include 21 Grams, The Science of Sleep, the very creepy Lemming and a choice part in Todd Haynes' upcoming Dylan biopic, I'm Not There — but in France, she's most famous for being the daughter of the legendary singer Serge Gainsbourg. Before Charlotte was born, her parents (her mother is the singer and actress Jane Birkin) collaborated on the song "Je T'aime...Moi Non Plus," which fades out with an extended female orgasm. When Charlotte was twelve, she recorded her own duet with her father, "Lemon Incest." Sample lyric: "The love that we will never make together is the most beautiful...the most pure." Gainsbourg recorded a full-length pop album with her father when she was fifteen before giving up music in favor of acting. That all changed when the dudes from Air, themselves heavily influenced by Gainsbourg pere, agreed to write music for a new album. The result is 5:55, produced by Nigel Godrich (Radiohead, Beck) and featuring lyrical contributions from Jarvis Cocker and the Divine Comedy's Neil Hannon.

THE FORMULA (Feist + Edith Piaf) x Synths = Charlotte Gainsbourg

SOUND "I had influences, but they were mostly films," says Gainsbourg, 35. "I didn't talk much about music to [Air]. I talked about the images and ambience of certain films that made a big impression on me as a child. They all dealt with the night, isolation, dreams." Indeed, Gainsbourg's breathy English-language vocals and Air's hippest-elevator-music-in-the-world aesthetic sounds best after midnight.

MUST-HAVE TRACK "5:55"
Easy listening for the cool kids, with breathy vocals and atmospherics from Air.

DIRTY DAD "It made a lot of noise," admits Gainsbourg of "Lemon Incest." "But at that time, I was in boarding school and didn't hear a thing about it. Of course, my father knew what he was doing, and he wanted to shock people." Gainsbourg says her father was like a conductor in the studio, directing her performance, which was why she assumed she'd never make music without him. Did he offer any advice? "Never take singing lessons," Gainsbourg recalls. "That's it, basically." MARK BINELLI

Next: Lifesavas

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Hip-hop was still a fresh phenomenon when Vursatyl and Jumbo of Lifesavas met in Portland, Oregon, in the mid-Eighties. "People would tell me, 'There's another cat in town that dresses like you,'" recalls Vursatyl. "We were both wearing fat laces in our shoes, big bubble vests and goggles year-round. There were only a handful of us." After spending the Nineties releasing material on their own label, Lifesavas dropped Spirit in Stone in 2003, on Quannum. But it's their follow-up, Gutterfly, that should put them over the top. "We put it all on the table with this album," says Vursatyl. "Who knows what will come after this?"

THE FORMULA (De La Soul - P.M. Dawn) x Dolomite = Lifesavas

SOUND Jumbo produces most tracks, using a dense stew of samples from Seventies soul, while Vursatyl inhabits a wide range of characters with a limber flow. Gutterfly, featuring guests George Clinton and Fishbone, is a concept album with a diverse cast of characters, including Baraka Feldman, who supposedly wrote the blaxploitation-style screenplay on which the disc is based. "Using the characters was perfect freedom for us," says Vursatyl. "It allowed us to make a statement about who we are and what we dig."

MUST-HAVE TRACK "Night Out"
George Clinton guests on this pitch-black tale of schemes hatched in the night.

DEADLINE PRESSURE In 1997, after ten years pursuing hip-hop glory while struggling to pay the rent, Vursatyl considered giving up on his dream. "I was working at a record store with this blues player," he says. "He was like, 'You can't work a job and succeed at music. It's one or the other.' I said, 'I'm giving myself a year to put myself all out there.' That year, we made $300. Come next October, I'm like, 'I think I need to get a job.' A week later I met [Quannum's] Chief Xcel, and he was like, 'We need to hook up.' I haven't worked a real job since." EVAN SERPICK

Next: Amy Winehouse

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I should just be my own best friend," Amy Winehouse sings on her vintage-soul album, Back to Black. "Not fuck myself in the head with stupid men." Unfortunately for Winehouse, without her failed relationships — and her ongoing bout with the bottle — there would be no Back to Black. "The black refers to being in a black mood, in a dark hole," says Winehouse, 23, who was raised in North London, surrounded by hip-hop. Back to Black veers away from the jazzy tone of her debut, 2003's Frank, as the singer indulges in her latest infatuations: Motown, doo-wop and Sixties girl groups. "All I listen to now is soul," she says.

THE FORMULA (Aretha Franklin x Janis Joplin) - Food = Amy Winehouse

SOUND While Winehouse's gritty delivery — recalling Sarah Vaughan and Etta James — belies her young age, it's a gift for writing about personal demons with a blunt, brutal and, at times, amusing honesty that gives Black its edge. On "Rehab," which is already a smash hit in the U.K., Winehouse refuses to get help for her alcohol dependency, singing, "I don't never want to drink again/I just, ohh I just need a friend." In addition to Winehouse's pipes, what sets the album apart from today's other soul projects is its vintage feel. "It's one of the best recordings ever," says Roots drummer Ahmir "?uestlove" Thompson. "She's coming from Fifties and Sixties doo-wop, and they nailed that sound exactly."

MUST-HAVE TRACK "Tears Dry on Their Own"
Winehouse channels her inner Smokey Robinson to deal with a nasty breakup on this sould gem.

WINEHOUSE, SOUSED In early March, Winehouse abruptly canceled two big London gigs. Though the shows were officially nixed due to "unforeseen circumstances," Winehouse says it was because she'd fallen down drunk. "I broke a big tooth," she says. "I had a massive gap in the front of my mouth." It's one of Winehouse's many alcohol-induced lapses. In January, in New York, she tore up her left arm after a drunken spill. That month, she also vomited midsong during a club gig in London. And during a visit to the U.K.'s Charlotte Church Show, she boozily stammered her way through a televised version of "Beat It." (Watch the clip on YouTube.) She is unapologetic about her taste for alcohol, but she hopes that a breakthrough record in the States will keep her busy enough to lay off the bottle. "I love going on tour more than anything else," says Winehouse. "It keeps me off the streets." AUSTIN SCAGGS

Next: Manchester Orchestra

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This unsigned atlanta band is at the center of a major-label bidding war that threatens to get even more heated after the ensemble — led by precocious singer-songwriter Andy Hull — finishes touring with emo heavyweights Brand New and Saves the Day this spring. Hull, 20, who started playing under the name Manchester Orchestra two years ago when he was just seventeen, is in no hurry to sign a big deal. He's releasing the band's debut album, I'm Like a Virgin Losing a Child, on his own Favorite Gentleman label, and, for now, he's focused on a simple — albeit ambitious — goal of playing 250 shows this year.

THE FORMULA (Death Cab x Bright Eyes) - Record Deal = Manchester Orchestra

SOUND Lavishly moody indie rock that ought to appeal to fans of Death Cab for Cutie, Modest Mouse and Bright Eyes. The "orchestra" part of the name isn't entirely misleading: Though Hull and his crew stick to traditional rock instrumentation, songs such as "Where Have You Been?" "I Can Barely Breathe" and "Alice and Interiors" are expansive in scope and rich in texture even while remaining lyrically focused on small moments of revelation.

MUST-HAVE TRACK "The Neighborhood Is Bleeding"
A sweet ditty that sheds the album's gray veil and echoes early Death Cab

MAMA SAID Not only did Hull's parents let him skip his last year of high school so that he could concentrate on music, but it's his mother who hipped him to Death Cab, Neutral Milk Hotel and Radiohead. "She's a writer and has always been introducing me to different forms of art," Hull says. "She's my favorite person. When I was fifteen, she dropped me off outside the Cotton Club [in Atlanta] to see Death Cab and the Dismemberment Plan. It was like a whole new world for me to hear this indie music that had all the pop elements and catchy hooks but was talking about stuff that was important." JENNY ELISCU

Next: Rose Hill Drive

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Rose Hill Drive, a young power trio whose members somehow all manage to look like the last known photograph of Duane Allman, grew up in Boulder, Colorado, worshipping guitar-shredding groups like the Who and Van Halen. They never imagined their high school band (named after the street that guitarist Daniel Sproul, 22, and his bassist brother, Jacob, 24, grew up on) would wind up opening for both groups before the oldest member hit age twenty-five."We were used to looking for the smallest place in the city," Jacob says. "Instead, we're cruising down the highway looking for the Enormodome."

THE FORMULA (Cream + Bon Scott) x Big Cool Friend = Rose Hill Drive

SOUND Rose Hill Drive's debut sounds like it was buried in a time capsule in 1974. Their stripped-down yet highly frenzied music has drawn frequent comparisons to Cream and Led Zeppelin — but the group is growing weary of labels. "The whole new retro-band thing is getting a little old," says Daniel.

MUST-HAVE TRACK "Raise Your Hands"
Jacob Sproul palys bass like John Entwistle and sings like Bon Scott on this rock anthem.

AMAZING JOURNEY One major supporter has been Pete Townshend, who has repeatedly lavished praise on the band he hand-selected to open on the Who's current U.S. tour. He even invited the members to join him at a club gig in Chicago, where he jammed with them on the 1960s Who live staple "Young Man Blues" as well as "Raise Your Hands," a Rose Hill Drive original. "It sounds clichéd, but it seemed like everyone in the room disappeared but us four," Jacob says. "Pete's just out-of-control cool. He adds these riffs, despite not knowing the song well, which were just instantly badass." ANDY GREENE

Next: Check out the Artists to Watch from Issue 1049 — April 3, 2008

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Artists to Watch 2008
Low vs Diamond, Laura Izibor, Ra Ra Riot, 3OH!3, Lykke Li and Dead Confederate
[From Issue 1060 — September 4, 2008]

Artists to Watch 2008
Foals, Leona Lewis, Chester French, Duffy, PlayRadioPlay!, Wale and Does It Offend You, Yeah?
[From Issue 1049 — April 3, 2008]

Artists to Watch 2007
Santogold, Brett Dennen, the Cool Kids, Black Kids, Liam Finn, MGMT, Kate Nash, Estelle, Year Long Disaster, OneRepublic
[From Issue 1040 — November 29, 2007]

Artists to Watch 2006
TV on the Radio, the Boy Least Likely To, Rock Kills Kid, Wolfmother, Nicole Atkins, Matt White, the Whigs, Papoose, Daniel Powter, Bonde do Role
[From Issue 997 — April 6, 2006]