2008 Rock & Roll User's Guide

Blog Sweethearts

Hot Chip
Made in the Dark, due February 5

What's the Deal: The third album from Britain’s geeky synth quintet reveals an unexpected inspiration: heavy metal. “We’re not claiming that every song is influenced by Megadeth,” cofrontman Alexis Taylor says. “But ‘Out at the Pictures’ and ‘Bendable Poseable’ recall Black Sabbath.”

Why We're Excited: “Wrestlers” is the best electro-pop song about professional wrestling … well, ever. “I wrote it after [LCD Soundsystem’s] James Murphy borrowed Al from our band and told me that we couldn’t have Al back unless I wrestled him,” Taylor says.

Behind the Music: The band used a gong for percussion, and also to adjourn recording sessions. “It’s a pretty puny gong,” Taylor laments. “We were playing a festival with the Killers, and they have a massive one. So we have gong envy.”

---

The Teenagers
As yet untitled, due March

What's the Deal: These French trash-poppers are in their mid-20s, but their libidos are stuck firmly in adolescence. On the single “Homecoming,” frontman Quentin Delafon deadpans, “I fucked my American cunt.” “On the radio in England we changed it to ‘I touch my American crush,’” he says. “Which is really sweet, but a bit lousy for the song.”

Why We're Excited: “Starlett Johansson,” the stalkerish, tongue-in-cheek ode to everyone’s favorite curvy actress. “We tried to get in touch with her for the video,” Delafon says, “but strangely, we got no answer.”

Goal for 2008: While the singer would “love” to score a cameo on The Hills, he’s not as excited about star Heidi Montag’s upcoming pop career. “Her new song is horrid! Her voice is so … how do you say? Auto-Tune Montag!”

---

The Gossip
As yet untitled, due spring

What's the Deal: The major-label debut from the Olympia, Washington, dance-punk trio led by vocal powerhouse Beth Ditto.

Why We're Excited: “We may record one song called ‘Big Lady Dance Floor,’” says the plus-size Ditto. “It’s about not giving a screw. When people talk about my weight, I go, ‘Not shame on me because I’m fat, shame on you for being so boring.’”

Goal for 2008: As one tolerance-themed song they may record puts it: “Love and Let Love.” “People don’t understand different concepts of love,” explains the out-and-proud singer. “My super-Pentecostal aunt thinks I’m going to hell. She’s like, ‘I hope you have a really good time on Earth’ — hey, that’s a good song title, isn’t it?”

---

Wolf Parade
Pardon My Blues, due spring

What's the Deal: Two of these four Montreal oddball rockers released side-project albums in 2007 (Sunset Rubdown’s Random Spirit Lover and the Handsome Furs’ Plague Park), but the separation brought them closer. Says singer-guitarist Dan Boeckner: “There’s more Marxist collective-style collaboration on this one.”

Why It's Better Than Their Last One: It’s definitely crazier, promises Boeckner, who says weeks of isolation made his band like a “man who lives in a cabin in the woods penning letters to God with dirt and tree sap.” To wit: the extended psych-jam “Crazy Horse,” which Boeckner describes as “a 12-minute song that sounds vaguely like Slayer.”

The Haters Will Say: “Um, that there’s a 12-minute song that sounds vaguely like Slayer?” Boeckner says.

---

Cat Power
Jukebox, due January 22

What's the Deal: In 2000, cult heroine Chan Marshall released The Covers Record, a set of indie-fied remakes of songs by Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones and the Velvet Underground. Seven years later, she visited studios in Brooklyn, Dallas and Miami to record the follow-up.

Why We're Excited: The song selection looks just as superb this time as Marshall reinterprets rock, country and R&B legends, including Dylan, Hank Williams, Billie Holiday, Janis Joplin and James Brown. Even better, she’s backed on all of  ’em by her sublimely funky Dirty Delta Blues Band.

Goal for 2008: Maybe another collection of covers! As she wrote on her MySpace page a few months back: “With so many covers, tryin’ to decide if I should release Covers Record 2 VOL. 2??