 | | Folk-rock duo Tegan and Sara first burst onto the Canadian music scene in 1998, when they earned the highest score in history at Calgary's "Garage Warz" competition; their quick rise didn't stop, for their melodic acoustics and charming stage personas led to a slew of dates with Sarah McLachlan's Lilith Fair that same year and a record deal with Neil Young's Vapor Records in April 2000. |
 | | A family act featuring three sisters, their brother, and their first cousin, Eisley formed in 1997 when the DuPree siblings -- guitarist Chauntelle, singer/guitarist Sherri, singer/keyboardist Stacy, and drummer Weston -- began playing whimsical, dreamy alt-pop with bassist Jon Wilson. |
 | | Like their West Coast contemporaries in Death Cab for Cutie, Rilo Kiley steadily gained traction in indie pop circles throughout the late '90s and early 2000s before the record industry (and public at large) officially took note. |
 | | Crafting a sound halfway between alternative rock and confessional singer/songwriter pop, the Utah-based band Meg & Dia began as a partnership between sisters Meg and Dia Frampton. |
 | | Discovered in the wake of the Strokes' popularity and the subsequent garage rock revival, New York's art punk trio the Yeah Yeah Yeahs are comprised of singer Karen O, guitarist Nicolas Zinner, and drummer Brian Chase. |
 | | With her omnivorous musical tastes and cheeky attitude, London-based pop singer/songwriter Lily Allen made a name for herself almost as soon as she released her demos on the Internet. |
 | | Metric are a band with an eclectic, adventurous outlook, whose music encompasses elements of synth pop, new wave, dance-rock, and electronica and whose hometown has vacillated between Toronto, Montreal, New York, Los Angeles, and London over the course of the group's existence. |
 | | Hailing from Brooklyn, New York (by way of Boulder, Colorado, where they originally came together in 2006), the avant-pop outfit Chairlift formed for the unusual purpose of crafting music for haunted houses. |
 | | Leslie Feist -- best known simply as Feist -- was a respected member of the Canadian alternative music community before becoming an international pop sensation with the success for her albums Let It Die and The Reminder. |
 | | Equally inspired by classic tunesmiths like Buddy Holly and John Lennon and the street-smart attitude and angular riffs of fellow New Yorkers Television and the Velvet Underground, the Strokes were also equally blessed and cursed with an enormous amount of hype -- particularly from the U. |
 | | What began as random jam sessions between friends Bob Morris (guitar) and Greta Salpeter (piano/guitar) eventually grew into the Chicago indie pop quartet the Hush Sound. |
 | | Luke Pritchard (vocals/guitar), Hugh Harris (guitar), Max Rafferty (bass), and Paul Garred (drums) generate the rubbishy garage rock sounds of the Kooks. |
 | | By distilling the sounds of Franz Ferdinand, the Clash, the Strokes, and the Libertines into a hybrid of swaggering indie rock and danceable neo-punk, Arctic Monkeys became one of the U. |
 | | Aspiring to nothing more than a good old-fashioned rock & roll party, the Donnas won a cult following and considerable media attention in the late '90s after scoring a record deal right out of high school. |
 | | The Blow is really visual artist and performer Khaela Maricich, who formerly released recordings under the name Get the Hell Out of the Way of the Volcano, after which she recorded (with the help of some guests) for K under the name the Blow. |
 | | Penning songs that are offbeat in narrative, but literate and emotionally revealing, and performing them in a soulful, idiosyncratic style that reveals both strength and fragility, Cat Power was one of the most acclaimed singer/songwriters to emerge from the 1990s indie rock scene, a one of a kind artist unafraid to reveal her inner self in her music and follow her muse in a variety of different directions. |
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 | | Although many musicians joined the band's rotating lineup, Bright Eyes was primarily the songwriting vehicle of Conor Oberst, a quivery-voiced Nebraska native who first attracted attention in 1994 -- when he was only 14 years old -- as the singer and guitarist for Commander Venus. |
 | | Sydney, Australia's Youth Group originally formed around vocalist/guitarist Toby Martin and drummer Danny Allen. |
 | | Glasgow's art-damaged rock quartet Franz Ferdinand -- named for the Austro-Hungarian Archduke whose murder sparked World War I -- feature bassist Bob Hardy, guitarist Nick McCarthy, drummer Paul Thomson, and singer/guitarist Alex Kapranos. |
 | | Eight years into their career, the Hives rose from garage rock stalwarts to one of the trendiest bands of the early 2000s, along with the Strokes and the White Stripes. |
 | | The bluesy punk duo the Kills consist of vocalist/guitarist VV, aka Alison Mosshart, formerly of the Florida punk band Discount, and drummer/guitarist/vocalist Hotel, aka Jamie Hince. |
 | | Describing their sound as "Upper West Side Soweto," New York City's Vampire Weekend mix preppy, well-read indie rock with joyful, Afro-pop-inspired melodies and rhythms. |
 | | When Tears for Fears sang "Kick out the Style/Bring back the Jam" in "Sowing the Seeds of Love," one can imagine the lads in Kaiser Chiefs raising their mugs of ale in agreement. |
 | | Muse's fusion of progressive rock, glam, electronica, and Radiohead-influenced experimentation is crafted by guitarist/vocalist Matthew Bellamy, bassist Chris Wolstenholme, and drummer Dominic Howard. |
 | | OK Go didn't find an audience until 2005, when the band began creating homemade music videos to support their combination of off-kilter guitars, Pixies/Cars fetishism, and straightforward power pop sensibilities. |
 | | As one of the most popular groups to emerge in the post-grunge alternative rock aftermath, Weezer received equal amounts of criticism and praise for their hook-heavy guitar pop. |
 | | Like simpatico songwriter Lily Allen, Kate Nash launched her career on MySpace, where her piano-driven pop songs and lyrics (delivered in a distinctive London accent) found a number of listeners. |
 | | New Jersey's Socratic featured vocalists/guitarists Duane Okun and Kevin Bryan, percussionist Tom Stratton, bassist Adam Swider, and pianist Vincent D'Amico. |
 | | Fiona Apple defied categorization or any easy career path, almost running the pattern in reverse, opening her career as a highly touted and popular alternative singer/songwriter, then transitioning into a cult artist. |
 | | Often compared to the druggy psychedelic pop of the Velvet Underground, the Dandy Warhols do possess more than just a passing resemblance to Lou Reed and company at times, but elements of such modern rockers as Love and Rockets and Ride can be detected in their sound as well. |
 | | Equally inspired by Sonic Youth, Joy Division, Gang of Four, and the Cure, East London art punkers Bloc Party mix angular sonics with pop structures. |
 | | Death Cab for Cutie's rise from small-time solo project to Grammy-nominated rock band is one of indie rock's greatest success stories. |
 | | With a sound that mixes 21st century indie tones and the late-'70s new wave attitude of Talking Heads or the Modern Lovers, New York City's the Virgins were formed in 2006 by lead singer/songwriter Donald Cumming. |
 | | Named after a Chinese friend whose name sounds like the Mandarin pronunciation of "bandstand," the Ting Tings -- a scrappy, dance-oriented duo consisting of singer/guitarist Katie White and drummer Jules De Martino -- formed in the Salford district of Manchester, England in 2006. |
 | | A veteran of New York's anti-folk scene, songwriter Regina Spektor makes quirky, highly eclectic, but always personal music. |
 | | With their heady blend of precision punk and serpentine classic rock (the band has drawn comparisons to everyone from the Pixies and Sonic Youth to Elvis Costello and Tom Petty), enigmatic, Texas-based indie pop outfit Spoon went from underground press darlings to one of the genre’s premier commercially and critically acclaimed alternative rock acts. |
 | | Los Angeles indie supergroup JJAMZ came together in late 2008 during a group hang session at a karaoke bar in Hollywood. |
 | | While attending Brooklyn's Pratt Institute of the Arts in the late '90s, vocalist/guitarist Shawn Christensen, bassist Amanda Tannen, and drummer Arthur Kremer befriended one another for what would eventually become a musical journey. |
 | | Growing out of the American underground of the late '80s, Liz Phair fused lo-fi indie rock production techniques with the sensibility and structure of classic singer/songwriters. |
 | | Proudly representing for the roughneck end of garage rock, the Rock N Roll Soldiers make an aggressively nasty noise that owes much more to the Pretty Things and early Rolling Stones than it does the White Stripes. |
 | | Modest Mouse were one of the most surprising commercial success stories of the new millennium -- while their music was by turns taut and elliptical, and the lyrics sometimes cryptic and introspective, the band broke through to the mainstream audience with the platinum-selling Good News for People Who Love Bad News, and they became genuine rock stars at a time when their musical peers remained cult figures. |
 | | The French group Phoenix draw elements from their eclectic '80s upbringing to arrive at a satisfying blend of rock and synthesizers. |
 | | Of the myriad young alt-rock bands to arise in the early 2000s, Something Corporate stood out with their piano-fueled songcraft and crossover potential. |
 | | After the Libertines broke up in fall 2004, singer/songwriter and guitarist Carl Barat began work on his next musical project. |
 | | The Vancouver indie rock supergroup the New Pornographers features the talents of Zumpano's Carl Newman, the Evaporators' John Collins, Destroyer's Dan Bejar, cartoonist/filmmaker Blaine Thurier, drummer Fisher Rose, and guest vocalist Neko Case. |
 | | Following the success of several gloomy post-punk revival bands, the Cinematics formed in 2003 and hail from Glasgow, Scotland, after originally meeting in Dingwall. |
 | | Though she was born in Seattle, songwriter Alison Sudol spent most of her life in Los Angeles, having moved there with her mother when she was five years old. |
 | | Formerly in rival bands on the Chicago local scene, guitarist Mike Carden and vocalist William Beckett came together in 2003 to mark the beginning of emo-pop outfit the Academy Is. |
 | | Toronto's quirky, high-energy indie rock outfit Tokyo Police Club features vocalist/bassist Dave Monks, keyboardist/vocalist Graham Wright, guitarist/percussionist Josh Hook, and drummer/percussionist Greg Alsop. |
![Wishing He Was Dead [UK Version] Album Cover](http://images.slacker.com/isv1/album/v1/5555682/aol/1/center/5,0/70.jpg "Wishing He Was Dead [UK Version] Album Cover")
