33. Antony and the Johnsons

There is, above all, the voice: a stratospheric tenor of fluttering worry and laserlike emotional force, as if Morrissey, Joni Mitchell and Jimmy Scott were singing together in the same man. Except that man -- English-born, New York-based androgyne Antony -- is all but dying to be something or someone else. I Am a Bird Now, this year's winner of Britain's Mercury Prize, is a masterful plea for transformation. Antony does not shy from the topic of gender ("For Today I Am a Boy"). But his singing and songs glow with inclusive soul. When he soars over the gospel piano in "Hope There's Someone," it is with a yearning for escape and company we all recognize in our bedroom mirrors.

Next: Paul Wall, The Peoples Champ