Reignwolf
Sounds Like: An unhinged, lovelorn, electric Canadian blues wildman who can’t decide if he wants to be Robert Plant or Jimmy Page.
For Fans Of: Black Keys, White Stripes, the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion
Why You Should Pay Attention: The full-contact blooz-bash of sweat grenade Jordan “Reignwolf” Cook has been enthralling summer festival crowds with acrobatic antics that find him bounding off bass drums, riding security guards, soloing in the audience, and abusing his Gibson. Though he only has little more than a 1,000-edition 7-inch and an iTunes single to his name, he’s already opened for the Pixies, has a 10-day tour with Black Sabbath on the horizon, and is headed into Dave Grohl’s Studio 606 to record songs that may appear on his long-awaited debut.
He Says: “Usually when I come off stage I’ll notice all sorts of new cuts and bruises and all sorts of blood on my guitar. But when you’re in the act, you just don’t think about those things. One of my last shows actually, in Seattle, I took a land from the soundsystem. I jumped up on top and then I landed right beside my drum… My arm hit the backside of [the foot], and there’s still a nice scar kind of happening from that. And also in Texas, I was hanging from the roof in a little club there and same thing – landed right next to my drum. The same piece of my arm. Side-by-side scars, the twins, I call them.
‘I’ve only [ridden the security guards] a couple of times. The security was hilarious at Lollapalooza because the guy was so clueless about what happening. Right after we were done, he was like, ‘I’ve worked at this stage for six years,’ or something. ‘That’s the most intense show I’ve ever seen.’ Of course… that’s ‘cause I was on your back for the last song!’
Hear for Yourself:
The dramatic, distortion-caked rasper “Are You Satisfied?”
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Lucy Hale
Sounds Like: The Pretty Little Liars star and perennial Teen Choice Award winner says she grew up listening to both kinds of music: country and Disney princess songs. Those influences coalesce on her new single “You Sound Good to Me,” a perkily infatuated breeze set to arena-ready fiddle and mandolin.
For Fans Of: Sugarland, pre-NPR-pandering Dixie Chicks, Nashville’s Juliette Barnes
Why You Should Pay Attention: A gal can hardly find a home these days on country radio, which is a stomping ground for lightweight hunks telling big lies about good times in small towns. But Hale, beginning her fourth season as PLL’s Aria, brings 3 million weekly ABC Family viewers and even more Twitter followers. “You Sound Good to Me,” which rides the recent Nashville trend of likening your crush to a song (see Florida-Georgia Line’s “Cruise”), sold 42,000 downloads in its first week, hopping into the Billboard Hot 100 and the country Top 30. A full-length, recorded with producer Mark Bright (Rascal Flatts, Scotty McCreery, Carrie Underwood) and featuring a Joe Nichols duet, is expected this spring.
She Says: “While recording we would usually start at about 10 a.m. every morning and break at about 1 for lunch. I’m obsessed with ranch dressing and would pretty much have it every day. After we ate, I would come back in to continue recording and sound 50 percent better than before. So we joked that ranch dressing is my secret weapon.”
Hear for Yourself: “You Sound Good to Me,” the exact sonic opposite of a polar vortex.
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Lake Street Dive
Sounds Like: Llewyn Davis’s favorite pop group; Motown meets the Brill Building in jazzy, soulful, woulda-been Sixties chart toppers.
For Fans Of: Norah Jones, Pink Martini, Hurray for the Riff Raff
Why You Should Pay Attention: Launched as a country-jazz experiment at Boston’s New England Conservatory in 2005, Lake Street Dive has evolved into the hardest-swinging pop quartet since Manhattan Transfer. Their upcoming second album, Bad Self Portraits, is a fresh, knowing collection of tunes that split the difference between Motown soul, Sixties pop zip, and British Invasion swagger. With award-winning jazz vocalist Rachael Price as their secret ingredient, LSD boasts an unflagging collective charisma and sense of humor that will take them far. Invited to join a roomful of idols at T Bone Burnett’s Inside Llewyn Davis concert in New York, they found themselves mugging it up with Elvis Costello, who probably hasn’t seen their sultry million-views YouTube take on the Jackson Five’s “I Want You Back.” But he should.
They Say: “We came out of the institutional jazz scene,” says Price, “so it was a mischievous and crazy thing to decide to play three-chord pop. We wanted to make music that would garner younger fans, but we grew up listening to the Beatles and ended up playing music our parents love. We didn’t think about demographics, just ‘let’s play pop.'”
Hear for Yourself: Price delivers the goods in the loping, explosive “Rental Love”:
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