The Blender 100

"IT" IMPORTS
Interview with #100: Franz Ferdinand

CRUNK CONTAINER
99 Gasoline Cans
Let’s face it: Flasks are for wimps. Step into any Dirty South club, and chances are good you’ll see MCs and partiers alike guzzling booze from gallon gas cans (the choice mix is Hennessy and Red Bull). Lil Jon explains, “You can get a lot in there — and it looks gangsta!”

ROCKIN’ ROCKUMENTARY
98 Some Kind of Monster
Never devil worshipers, Metallica struggle mightily with their inner demons (and one another) in this close-up look at the recording of St. Anger: James Hetfield groans about rehab, Lars Ulrich deals with Dad and the band shrink prevents total meltdown. Remember, future metal gods — hugs, not drugs.

CAN'T STOP, WON’T STOP
97 Ghostface
By now, the Wu-Tang Clan’s halcyon days seem as distant as those of the 1986 Mets — the brilliant exception is Ghostface, whose fourth CD, The Pretty Toney Album, debuted in the Top 10, full of classic soul samples and hysterical thug tales.

WAY DEAD
96 Gram Parsons
Country-rock imagineer Parsons overdosed in 1973, then his body was kidnapped and cremated in the Joshua Tree desert. Thirty-one years later, there’s a biopic starring Johnny Knoxville as the corpse-snatcher and also July tribute concerts in L.A. and Santa Barbara with Lucinda Williams, Beck and Norah Jones.

CUTE CUTIE
95 Ben Gibbard
Baby-faced balladeer knocks ’em dead in The O.C.

He started Death Cab for Cutie as a solo project, but seven years later, Ben Gibbard’s Seattle quartet has become the cuddly public face of emo — “The Sound of Settling” is the prep-school anthem of the year. Meanwhile, Gibbard’s synth-pop collaboration-by-mail with L.A.’s Jimmy Tamborello, the Postal Service, topped the college charts last year. On top of all that, Death Cab gets name-dropped constantly by Adam Brody (as Seth Cohen) on The O.C. “It’s a little surreal,” Gibbard admits.

ODDS OF BLENDER 100 APPEARANCE IN 2005: 25-1

EWWW… AWWW!
94 Marilyn Manson and Dita Von Teese
“Do you, God of Fuck, take the Queen of Burlesque to be your unlawful, weirded wife…” On March 22, Marilyn Manson broke the hearts of heavily tattooed, Anne Rice–reading goth chicks everywhere by proposing — on his knees! — to his longtime paramour, the often scantily clad performance artist Dita Von Teese. Their wedding is expected to take place within the year, to be followed, presumably, by the pitter-patter of tiny cloven hooves.

ODDS OF BLENDER 100 APPEARANCE IN 2005: 40-1

ALL-STAR SURVIVORS!
Interview with #93: Velvet Revolver

BREAKOUT BALLADEERS
92 Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Brooklyn’s punky princess shows sensitive side

Karen O is known for onstage antics including, but not limited to, shoving her crotch at the front row and pouring beer down the front of designer dresses. But their power ballad, “Maps,” conquered MTV2 on the strength of a few spilled tears: Karen cries an oath of fidelity into a clutched mic, and skinniest guitarist alive Nick Zinner wrenches out a squalling solo. The single shot new life into the trio’s major-label debut, Fever to Tell, pushing it back up the charts. This fall the band will release a DVD of videos and live footage and begin recording a new album. Let’s toast to that!

ODDS OF BLENDER 100 APPEARANCE IN 2005: 12-1

NORAH, SCHMORAH!
91 Nellie McKay
She croons! She raps! She won’t take her clothes off for us!

Starting a beef with Norah Jones doesn’t exactly make you a badass, but 20-year-old Nellie McKay — who named her rollicking, slyly effusive debut Get Away From Me in answer to Jones’s Come Away With Me — croons, belts and even raps about obnoxious men, war and kittens with daring befitting a sensitive thug. And she warns Blender that “I’m not gonna wear a bikini to be on the cover of your rag!” Naked it is, then!

ODDS OF BLENDER 100 APPEARANCE IN 2005: 20-1

CELEBRITY BLOGGER
90 Fred Durst
Did you know that Fred Durst is a fan of Nietzsche or that he is “very sensitive [to] touch and smell”? You would if you logged onto the singer’s oft-updated blog, American Aliens, a safe place where Durst muses, mostly on his own thoughts and his “ever so changing place within [his] mind.”

THE NEXT 50 CENT
89 The Game
Compton’s The Game, né Jayceon Taylor, began rapping after catching some bullets in 2001 and quickly caught the ears of Dr. Dre and 50 Cent, who signed him to G-Unit Records. The deal hasn’t softened the 24-year-old: Check his mix-tape disses against Joe Budden for a lesson in blistering beef.

ALTERNATIVE TO WORK
88 Audioblogs
They’re just like regular Weblogs, except they also include MP3s — new ones every day, often including rare or not-yet-released songs. Fluxblog, Soul Sides and Tofu Hut are three of the best, curated by crate-digging fanatics.

UNPRONOUNCEABLE — BUT FUNKY!
87 !!!
A septet of twitchy, grumbly groovateers who moved from the Bay Area to Brooklyn a while back, they’ve unleashed their long-awaited brittle funk-bomb, Louden It Up, and will be making hipster hips do the double-bump across America this summer.

BEST BLEEPS
86 Vintage Video Game Sounds
Yesterday’s irritating computer noises become today’s hip musical inspiration

Bling-bling rappers and retrophiles alike have tapped the sounds of pizza-parlor video games for their electro amusement. Lil’ Flip raps over Pac-Man bleeps on his crunk hit “Game Over”; indie oddballs Monotrona, the Minibosses and the Advantage cover ’80s console themes; and a new wave of avant-garde composers make music on Game Boys (check out Bit Shifter, for one), ensuring that bullies will jank their lunch money well into old age.

ODDS OF BLENDER 100 APPEARANCE IN 2005: 75-1

BEST BOX-OFFICE BOMB
85 Donnie Darko
The best movie starring Patrick Swayze and a six-foot rabbit gets rereleased

Failed to fully grasp this cult classic’s mix of oversize imaginary bunnies and classic ’80s songs the first time around? Rectify that situation by catching the new director’s cut, in theaters now — it boasts more scenes, music and rabbit-related weirdness. Then please write Blender and tell us what the hell it’s all about.

ODDS OF BLENDER 100 APPEARANCE IN 2005: 500-1

MOVIE MAYHEM
84 Dig!
Hilarious heroin-assisted Dandy Warhols/Brian Jonestown Massacre documentary

“People say it’s the best rock & roll documentary ever made,” says Dandy Warhols singer Courtney Taylor. Part Don’t Look Back, part Hoop Dreams, the winner of the best doc award at Sundance follows the contrasting careers of the Dandys and their doomed, druggy pals, the Brian Jonestown Massacre. The movie’s star is the Massacre’s intense, abusive singer, “angriest junkie in the world” Anton Newcombe. What does he make of the finished movie? “I think I look fucking handsome,” he grunts.

ODDS OF BLENDER 100 APPEARANCE IN 2005: 250-1

BEST SPONGEMONKEY ANIMATOR
83 Joel Veitch
The man who gave the world the Quizno’s rodent thingies

Those Quizno’s ads with the furry, googly-eyed singing creatures are the creation of this British animator, based on his Flash video for the brilliant/idiotic original song “We Like the Moon.” (He claims his mission is “to destroy production values.”) It appears at rathergood.com alongside a bunch of hysterical videos he has made for other bands, sometimes against their will. You’ll have to hunt elsewhere, though, for his infamous video of Viking kittens declaiming Led Zep’s “Immigrant Song.”

ODDS OF BLENDER 100 APPEARANCE IN 2005: 60-1

BIG GAY COMEBACK
82 Judas Priest
After 12 years with a substitute singer, during which time elastic-voiced original frontman Rob Halford announced he was gay (no way!), the leather-clad gods are making a thunderous return with a headlining Ozzfest slot and a four-disc retrospective.

PHAT FAT MC
81 Sage Francis
Stout and unshaven, he resembles a disgruntled bus driver more than an up-and-coming indie rap hero. But with lyrics full of personal turmoil and political fury, this Rhode Island MC is set for nerd-hop glory.

HIP-HOP HOLY MAN
80 Ma$e
When Kanye West’s favorite MC traded in mics and Jacob diamonds for pulpits and WWJD bracelets in 1999, he swore it was for good. But with a rumored deal with Nelly’s Fo’ Reel label, Mason Betha is set for a comeback — just don’t expect any cursing.

INSTANT CONCERTIFICATION!
79 Live Albums to Go
How often have you left a Phish show and thought, “Wow, man, if only I could immediately relive that whole 17-hour experience?” Well, now you can, thanks to companies such as Instant Live, which burn bands’ sets as they’re being performed, allowing you to purchase a CD of the gig on your way to being mugged in the parking lot!

WORD TO YOUR MUM!
Interview with #78: Mike Skinner of the Streets

METAL MAESTROS
77 The Darkness
We told you they rocked!

Genuflecting before Judas Priest and Queen, these pop-genius Brits riotously prove the timelessness of sleek ’80s metal, monster ballads and spandex stuffing. Justin Hawkins’s falsetto is the sound of hard-rock angst evaporating. In the year since we tipped them for the top, the Darkness have, like all good rock stars, played sold-out tours, recorded a hit single, and spent $848 of Blender’s money…on a donkey.

ODDS OF BLENDER 100 APPEARANCE IN 2005: 14-1

BEST OF THE WORST
76 Idol Rejects
Proof that your career isn’t over just because Simon Cowell says it should be

Just ask runner-up Clay Aiken: Losing American Idol can be an even more lucrative path than winning. This summer, a whole phalanx of Idol also-rans — nerd pinup William Hung, military man Josh Gracin, bombastic soul siren Tamyra Gray, cipher RJ Helton — are making a run at the charts. Says second-season finalist Kimberley Locke, whose single “8th World Wonder” was a hit this spring, “I’ve got no more connections to Idol. I don’t care if Simon’s listened to my album, and I don’t care if he likes it.” Only Sideshow Bob look-alike Justin Guarini spoiled the party by getting dropped by his label.

ODDS OF BLENDER 100 APPEARANCE IN 2005: 35-1

CULT CARTOON
75 Aqua Teen Hunger Force
Frylock, Meatwad and Master Shake are Blender’s type of superheroes: trash-talking refugees from a McDonald’s value menu who listen to Schoolly D and are too lazy to fight crime. They’re the breakout stars of Adult Swim, the Cartoon Network’s late-night programming block for snickering stoners.

THE IRISH WILCO!
74 Hal
When England’s Rough Trade label signs an act, Blender pays attention — the company’s roster includes the Strokes and the Libertines. Rough Trade’s latest find is Hal, a Dublin four-piece whose self-assured single “Worry About the Wind” blends Beach Boys romanticism with the Band’s earthiness.

CALIENTE!
73 Reggaeton
A Puerto Rican hybrid of hip-hop, dancehall and salsa, reggaeton music is set to follow Jamaica’s blast onto U.S. pop charts. The genre’s breakout star is Tego Calderon, who shined last year on a remix of 50 Cent’s “P.I.M.P.”

MOVE OVER, TOM JONES
72 Wales
Croeso y Cymru! Or, should your Welsh be a little rusty, Welcome to Wales, the country that’s currently exporting more hot young acts than any other, including nü-metallers Lostprophets, the much-tipped Funeral for a Friend and the Madonna-collaborating Jem.

B-BOY BEVERAGES
71 Rapper Sport Drinks
Hydration help from Nelly, Fat Joe and Lil Jon.

“This ain’t no Bull,” Fat Joe proclaims in his shill spots for Stinger, a new hip-hop-targeted energy drink that aims to upend the Red Bull monopoly. There’s more where that came from: Rap impresario Russell Simmons launched DEFCON3 last year, and Nelly quickly followed with Pimp Juice. The latest entry into the field is Lil Jon’s (called, inevitably, Crunk!!!). Says Jon: “We made an energy drink so we could have our own shit to drink with Hennessy. I’ve had women tell me it makes them horny.” We’re sold.

ODDS OF BLENDER 100 APPEARANCE IN 2005: 20-1

TRIPLE THREAT
70 The Secret Machines
Two brothers and a pal make the year’s biggest, best new noise

Thrilling and vast, this Brooklyn trio’s live show is like a 747 zooming overhead in slow motion. The drums are among the heftiest you’ll hear, with keyboards and distorted riffs droning, floating and gnawing above. The Secret Machines whipped up a froth of major-label excitement with a 2002 indie EP; their full-length debut, Now Here Is Nowhere, catapults them into the big leagues.

ODDS OF BLENDER 100 APPEARANCE IN 2005: 18-1

UNDERACHIEVERS ACHIEVE!
69 College-Rock Graduates
Modest Mouse, the Shins and Fountains of Wayne break through

What do Fountains of Wayne’s “Stacy’s Mom,” Modest Mouse’s “Float On” and the Shins’ “Kissing the Lipless” have in common? Rachel Hunter, half-naked and writhing across a kitchen counter in the videos! OK, not really — each one is the most successful single in a band’s long, heretofore thankless indie-circuit career. As Modest Mouse’s Top 20 debut for their sixth album, Good News for People Who Love Bad News, proved, these three bands are role models for perseverance, uncompromising credibility and every other virtue that usually ensures extreme lifelong poverty.

ODDS OF BLENDER 100 APPEARANCE IN 2005: 40-1

MR. NICE
68 Wayne Coyne
The owner of rock’s filthiest white suit just wants everyone to have a lovely time!

Anyone with dreams of becoming a universally beloved indie-rock icon could do worse than ask himself, “What would Wayne do?” Whether ruminating on the importance of intraband good vibes at a South by Southwest Q&A or being transported across the Coachella crowd via an inflatable plastic bubble, the Flaming Lips frontman has become music’s own Christopher Walken — not necessarily the biggest star, but undeniably the coolest. Next year: a new Lips CD and their long-awaited movie, Christmas on Mars.

ODDS OF BLENDER 100 APPEARANCE IN 2005: 9-1

STATION MASTERS
67 Rock-Star DJs
Rewarding supportive DJs by, um, taking their jobs, the ever-increasing number of rock stars–turned–airwave celebrities includes former Sex Pistol Steve Jones, Little Steven and prime-time yakker Chuck D.

GANGSTA SCRIBE
66 Donald Goines
Addicted to heroin. Professional pimp. Shot dead by enemies — at his typewriter! This ’70s crime novelist is second only to Scarface as a hip-hop cultural touchstone: Jadakiss, Nas and Tupac have all sung his praises, and his novel Never Die Alone inspired the recent DMX movie of the same name.

F**KING OPPORTUNISTS!
65 The FCC
“Offended” by Janet’s wardrobe malfunction and encouraged by Congress, the Federal Communications Commission now enforces strict rules against “profanity,” newly defined in March as any “offensive” word or action. Fuck that shit!

FAST AND FURIOUS
64 Homemade Drag-Race DVDs
Who needs Vin Diesel and Ludacris? Illegal street racers across the country are taking Handicams to makeshift drag strips and adding hip-hop soundtracks to the mayhem. Available on an urban street corner near you, DVDs with names like The Fast and the Grimey are filled with tricked-out cars and the cops who hate them.

BEST RAY CHARLES IMPERSONATOR
63 Jamie Foxx
Hype funnyman turns serious for soul-legend biopic

Comedian, actor and Kanye West collaborator Foxx not only takes the lead in this fall’s Unchain My Heart: The Ray Charles Story, but he also played all of the blind soul icon’s piano parts in the biopic. “Ray’s ageless,” he says. “When we look in the mirror, we say, ‘Oh, my face — I got a wrinkle.’ He’s never done that.”

ODDS OF BLENDER 100 APPEARANCE IN 2005: 10-1

EXHUMED FOLKIE
62 Nick Drake
He’s bigger than ever — but alas, just as dead

For a dead guy, British cult-folkie Drake is having one hell of a year. His music was featured in the film Garden State, and last May the BBC broadcast a radio documentary on the singer-songwriter that was narrated by Brad Pitt. (Apparently the first rule of the Nick Drake Fan Club is that you do talk about it….)

ODDS OF BLENDER 100 APPEARANCE IN 2005: 100-1

THE SMART ONE
Interview with #61: Ashlee Simpson

PURPLE REIGN II
60 Prince
Growing old, weirdly but gracefully

“Comeback?” Prince recently mused. “I never went anywhere!” True, the music industry–hating funkateer has released albums as frequently in recent times as he did during his ’80s heyday — it’s just that not many people have actually wanted to hear a single note of them. (2003’s stinky N.E.W.S., anyone?) This year’s Musicology, however, has garnered the best reviews in years for the artist formerly known as the artist formerly known as Prince. Now, how about a Vanity 6 reunion?

ODDS OF BLENDER 100 APPEARANCE IN 2005: 16-1

GEEK DREAMBOAT
59 Seth Cohen
The O.C.’s emo-lovin’ anti-hunk

Teen drama’s coolest star isn’t a leather-jacketed beefcake. He’s wimpy, he wears cardigans and he knows all of the X-Men’s alter egos. Cute but neurotic, Seth Cohen (Adam Brody) is half hipster, half Woody Allen. He’s also the driving force behind The O.C.’s fantastic, indie-rock-heavy soundtrack: He gives Death Cab for Cutie CDs as holiday gifts to all his friends, adores Bright Eyes and held down the front row when SoCal popsters Rooney appeared on the show. Oh, and he somehow dates Summer, a popular cheerleader type, giving nerds everywhere hope.

ODDS OF BLENDER 100 APPEARANCE IN 2005: 25-1

NEW OLD INSTRUMENT
58 The Violin
It’s more portable than a cello, less backwoods than a banjo, and Kanye West, Courtney Love and modern-rockers Yellowcard all distinguish their live and studio sounds with one. No, not the thumb piano — it’s the violin!

CANUCK WEIRDOS
57 Unicorns
A year ago, this eccentric trio had barely ventured out of their native Canada. But with the surprise success of Who Will Cut Our Hair When We’re Gone?, a lo-fi, high-concept gem about ghosts, parasites and child stars, they’ve become savvy indie-rock Andy Kaufmans: lying to journalists and selling out their unpredictable live shows across the U.S.

PEE UNIT
56 R. Kelly’s Legal Team
If you’re a well-off R&B crooner with a penchant for junior-league water sports, you could do with worse representation than Ed Genson, part of the legal team that has successfully held R. Kelly’s kiddie-porn trial at bay for almost two years and even had some of the charges axed. Video tape, schmideo tape!

DOWNLOAD DORK
55 Bram Cohen
This 29-year-old invented BitTorrent, a program that allows enormous files to be quickly downloaded from multiple sites at once, enabling fans to trade full concerts in CD-quality sound. Result: more String Cheese Incident than any human can bear.

THE FABULOUS VOICE OF…
54 Christopher Flockton
The Scottish narrator of VH1’s celeb-obsessed hit

Want someone to make a music superstar’s painful liposuction regime sound like the most glamorous thing ever? Then Flockton, the narrator of VH1’s The Fabulous Life show, is most definitely your man. A Robin Leach for the bling-bling generation, the Edinburgh, Scotland-born theater veteran has a voice even richer, and in most cases considerably more classy, than the many people whose lives he details.

ODDS OF BLENDER 100 APPEARANCE IN 2005: 200-1

MUST-SEE TEEN TV
53 The N
They know what girls want…

Fourteen-year-old girls may be a mystery to their parents and boyfriends, but not to The N. The teen network, a nighttime Nickelodeon offshoot featuring lots of Clueless and Daria reruns, spins videos between programs and has helped launch off-center pop personalities like Ben Jelen, Black-Eyed Peas, Yellowcard and Joss Stone. Joe Fleischer, of Big Champagne, a firm that measures peer-to-peer file-trading, says, “The trading of Ben Jelen’s songs is completely out of scope with the little amount of airplay he’s gotten on radio. The N is special because it has such a well-targeted audience.” Aww, The N is blushing.

ODDS OF BLENDER 100 APPEARANCE IN 2005: 8-1

INDIE ICON
52 Conor Oberst
Pouty rock rainmaker plans world takeover!

Conor Oberst, winsome leader of baroque-pop Omaha collective Bright Eyes, is a man-boy of grand gestures. The recent NYC transplant plans to release two separate albums in January: an acoustic disc in keeping with his 2002 breakthrough, Lifted…, and an experimental set of collaborations recorded all over the musical map. (Country maverick Emmylou Harris contributed three songs in Nashville.) This year, he released EPs with Spoon’s Britt Daniel and fellow Nebraskans Neva Dinova. A rumored track with Snoop Dogg could not be confirmed as of press time.

ODDS OF BLENDER 100 APPEARANCE IN 2005: 5-1

ITALIAN STALLION
51 Ennio Morricone
Clint Eastwood and Uma Thurman kick ass to this man’s music

This 75-year-old Spaghetti Western soundtrack king has been a hipster prestige item for decades — this summer, his score for The Good, the Bad and the Ugly returns remastered and expanded. Meanwhile, Quentin Tarantino smacked his boiling, brewing, howling pieces all over the soundtrack to Kill Bill Vol. 2.

ODDS OF BLENDER 100 APPEARANCE IN 2005: 300-1

VH1 GODDESS50 Sheryl Crow
While CD sales of other middle-agers such as Madonna, Bruce Springsteen and Crow’s erstwhile employer Michael Jackson are in decline or free-fall, the appeal of La Crow continues to grow, as evidenced by her multiplatinum best-of. Hooking up with Tour de France–winning, zero-body-fat cyclist Lance Armstrong, however, is just showing off.

A-LIST ASSISTANT
49 Farnsworth Bentley
No longer just P. Diddy’s parasol prince, man-of-taste Farnsworth Bentley is hip-hop’s newest lifestyle accessory — dancing in Outkast videos and baby-sitting Puff’s insta-rap troupe Da Band. Next move: a possible MTV show — and a line of high-end umbrellas, naturally.

GLAM SQUAD
48 Scissor Sisters
Freaks, ’70s revivalists, art-school ironists, call them what you will — this New York band’s stage show is the sparkliest thing going, and their discofied remake of Pink Floyd’s “Comfortably Numb” is the glitter-bomb.

GRIME KING
47 Wiley
The new sound of London

“Grime” is a new high-speed, garage-influenced, very British take on hip-hop with rinky-dink production that sounds like ancient Atari cartridges shooting off sparks. Dizzee Rascal brought it to America, but the king of the scene is his pal Wiley, a 24-year-old producer-MC who cranks out a track a month with names like “Icerink” and “Eskimo.” He insists his music isn’t grime, it’s “eski beat.” Long live the tyranny of small differences!

ODDS OF BLENDER 100 APPEARANCE IN 2005: 60-1

COOL KICKS
46 Bathing Ape Sneakers
Strap these on and step out with hip-hop’s big boys

Cassidy does the Chi-town step in these hard-to-find kicks. Pharrell, Usher and Jay-Z won’t profile in anything less. Coming to a block near you? Not likely: The limited-edition Bapesta Force 1 sneakers, from Japanese clothing line Bathing Ape, retail for upward of $300. The tricolor dogs are must-haves for “uptown kids and industry kids,” says Wil Whitney, partner in New York’s trendy footwear shop Nom de Guerre. And they’re patent leather, meaning your Hpno won’t stain if you spill any.

ODDS OF BLENDER 100 APPEARANCE IN 2005: 1000-1

COOL COPYRIGHT INFRINGER
45 Danger Mouse
Mating the Beatles with Jay-Z made him DJ du jour

At the beginning of this year, Brian Burton was just another DJ. Then he unleashed The Grey Album — vocals from Jay-Z’s Black Album mixed with music from the Beatles’ White Album. Within days, he was famous, the Internet was ablaze with Grey Album MP3s (more than 100,000 people downloaded it in one day alone) and the music industry wanted to kick his ass. Now he’s working with indie rappers Prince Po and MF Doom, and The Grey Album has gone back underground. “People want what they can’t have,” Burton says.

ODDS OF BLENDER 100 APPEARANCE IN 2005: 30-1

RAP DANDY
44 Cam’ron
What do Roc-A-Fella’s prize MC and Barney the Dinosaur have in common?

Last year, Harlem MC Cam’ron had thugs across the country aping his unlikely fondness for everything pink — his live performances looked like Mary Kay Cosmetics conventions. This year, though, the rap fashion plate unloaded his pink Range Rover on eBay and made a switch to purple — he’s changed his wardrobe, repainted his Bentley and Rolls and, most importantly, named his new album Purple Haze, with nods to purple-syrup pioneer DJ Screw (alas, no shout-outs to Barney). And speaking of, there’s also Sizzurp, the purple, grape-flavored liqueur that Cam released earlier this year. Ah, synergy.

ODDS OF BLENDER 100 APPEARANCE IN 2005: 9-1

THUGSPIAN!
43 Sean Combs
Surprisingly, the gaudy mogul makes his leading-man debut not in a Steven Seagal action flick but on Broadway, starring in A Raisin in the Sun. His acting, says the New York Times, makes the show “lopsided and ultimately dreary” — but since when have haters stopped Sean Combs?

ALT-PORN
42 Suicide Girls
In 2001 photographer Missy Suicide discovered her calling — photographing tattooed and/or heavily pierced goth chicks wearing very few clothes. (Hey, it beats being a blacksmith!) That calling has now become a mini-industry with its own Web site, live burlesque show and nü-porn coffee-table book.

POSITIVE PUNKS
41 Good Charlotte
Last year, these boys shot from pop-punk nobodies to chart-owning demigods, more interested in songs about uplift than upheaval. With their own brand new label (D.C. Flag), a Warped Tour headlining spot and an album due in September, they show no signsof budging.

SENSITIVE METALLERS
40 Hoobastank
Guitarist Dan Estrin was almost killed in a motorcycle crash last summer, but even a fractured skull couldn’t stop these California emo-metallers. Their new album is already nearing platinum certification, powered by the jewel-heist video for the lead single, “The Reason.”

DOESN’T SUCK ANYMORE!
39 Rock Radio
Goodbye, Fred Durst; hello, skinny boys with skinnier ties

Not since Kurt Cobain hijacked the charts has commercial radio paid so much attention to under-the-radar rock — from L.A. to New York, the modern-rock format has been shunning jock-rock like limpbizkit for arty bands (Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Modest Mouse) and “alternative gold” acts (Nirvana, the Cure). One popular upstart, L.A.’s Indie 103.1, chops any band who sounds as though it paid more than $11.89 to record its album: Jet and the Strokes howl alongside vintage acts such as Television and New Order.

ODDS OF BLENDER 100 APPEARANCE IN 2005: 40-1

AUDIO ADVANCE
38 Earplug Headphones
Stick ’em in and rock on

IPod users know that ear buds are inconspicuous but let in too much background noise; foam earplugs block out noise, but don’t let in anything fun, either. So some genius combined the two into plug-phones, such as Shure’s E2c model ($99), that seal off your ear canal against distractions (like, say, oncoming trucks).

ODDS OF BLENDER 100 APPEARANCE IN 2005: 23-1

HOLLYWOOD HEROINE
37 Janis Joplin
Prayed for a Mercedes-Benz — got two biopics instead

Forget pirates, zombies and that Jesus guy. Thanks to a pair of planned biopics, the next hot Hollywood subject is the hard-living (and, as a result, now not living at all) singer Janis Joplin. Piece of My Heart has A-list acting talent in the form of Oscar winner Renée Zellweger. The Gospel According to Janis, meanwhile, will star Pink, who campaigned for the role in predictably restrained fashion. “She got six inches from my face,” explains producer Peter Newman, “and said, ‘There is no fucking person in the world who can play Janis other than me.’”

ODDS OF BLENDER 100 APPEARANCE IN 2005: 50-1

R&B MILF
Interview with #36: Brandy

BEST MIDLIFE CRISIS
35 The Beastie Boys
New York’s finest white boys time-travel to hip-hop’s old school

OK, so MCA’s raspy rapping sounds like he’s been gargling regularly with a pile of disposable razors. But otherwise, hip-hop’s other white meats don’t sound a day older than 18 on their first album since 1998’s Hello Nasty. Packed with retro breakbeats and nonsense tag-team rhyming, To the 5 Boroughs is the trio’s boisterous big-up to their hometown — and an impassioned up-yours to George W. Bush. The video for “Ch-check It Out” is a Spike Jonzean mix of Star Trek costumes and alligator attacks.

ODDS OF BLENDER 100 APPEARANCE IN 2005: 15-1

BEHIND-BARS STAR
34 T.I.
The Southern MC who’s not just “in” — he’s incarcerated!

If ex–P. Diddy protégé Shyne — locked up on gun charges after manning one hit single — can sign a $3 million label deal with Def Jam from behind bars, things aren’t so grim for this Atlanta MC. His single “Rubber Band Man” was dominating radio and MTV when, in March, T.I. turned himself in to the authorities for parole violation. He’s stuck in the slammer for three years, although it may be just one if he plays nice. Southern kingpin and T.I. pal David Banner is counting the minutes: “T.I. is gonna try to take over the game. And you gonna listen to him.”

ODDS OF BLENDER 100 APPEARANCE IN 2005: 200-1

FALLEN ANGEL
33 Amy Lee
Fallen, the debut album from the Lee-fronted Evanescence, has now sold 5 million copies. And the best may be yet to come. “I feel we could have gone so much further,” says the biggest female rock star on the face of the planet. “I’m dying to do that on the next album.”

JOYSTICK ALERT
32 Halo 2
The sequel to the best-selling, alien-eviscerating action shooter doesn’t come out until this fall — but it’s so hyped, Justin Timberlake begged for a personal demo at Bungie studios and got his tour bus outfitted with XBoxes.

GANGSTA GOBLET
31 Pimp Cups
Any schmo can scrounge a fur coat and velvet bowler from the local thrift-store dollar bin — true pimps pay thousands for custom-designed diamond-inset chalices. Ask Snoop, Lil Jon, R. Kelly and 50 Cent: There’s nothing better for sipping on juice than an unwieldy metal goblet!

MUSOS’ MUSOS
30 Wilco
Wilco’s fantastically weird album A Ghost Is Born may be a treat for furrowed-browed musicologists, but Blender contributor Greg Kot’s recent band biography serves as a reminder that Jeff Tweedy & Co. are also no strangers to rock & roll excess. As did Tweedy’s recent spell in rehab for pill addiction.

APPETITE FOR COLLABORATION
29 Josh Homme
“Working” with Brody Dalle wasn’t this rock stud’s only liaison

There are probably only six degrees of separation between Homme, singer-guitarist for Queens of the Stone Age, and any notable hard-rocker. He’s helmed 10 volumes of out-there collaborative CDs called Desert Sessions, enlisting PJ Harvey and members of Soundgarden; he recently wrote songs for Melissa Auf Der Maur’s debut; and he plays drums in new critics’ favorites Eagles of Death Metal. What’s next? “I’d really like to work with Peaches,” he says. “We’ll make Christian polka together.” Oh, you!

ODDS OF BLENDER 100 APPEARANCE IN 2005: 17-1

CELEBRITY RIDE-PIMPER
28 Xzibit
MTV’s newest star wants to put some crunk in your trunk

Quick car quiz: Are your rims smaller than drink coasters? Does your system consist of a Walkman duct-taped to the dashboard? Is your sunroof a rusty hole in the ceiling? If the answer’s yes, Xzibit is your patron saint. The host of MTV’s Pimp My Ride shepherds would-be ballers and their dingy, dilapidated cars into chromed-out, retrofitted, PS2-in-the-headrests glory. The jalopies get some shine, and so does the Los Angeles hip-hop fixture: In between extreme automotive makeovers, X is finishing up his fifth album, Weapons of Mass Destruction.

ODDS OF BLENDER 100 APPEARANCE IN 2005: 40-1

OLD AT HEART
27 Young Fogeys
Look like teens, sound like boomers

“Geezer-friendly music + young hot bod = oodles of moolah” is an equation record executives have grown to love. A bizarro universe mirror image of Britney, Christina, etc., this phenomenon was spearheaded by 25-year-old Norah Jones, whose Feels Like Home CD sold more than a million copies in its first week of release. But nipping at her sensible shoes are Joss Stone, 17, and Renee Olstead, only 15. Meanwhile, the popularity of Rat Pack–loving American Idol’s John Stevens proved that you don’t need to hold a tune like Frank Sinatra, or at all, to get the fogey vote.

ODDS OF BLENDER 100 APPEARANCE IN 2005: 35-1

DISNEY DIVAS
26 Hilary and Haylie Duff
Power sisters get famous, “edgy”

Could the Duffs be any hotter? Only if The Simpsons’ beer-dispensing Duff Man was their dad. Sixteen-year-old Hilary has confirmed her tween icon status with the triple-platinum Metamorphosis CD, plus big screen roles in Cheaper by the Dozen and A Cinderella Story. The lead single of the Cinderella soundtrack featured her performing a cover of the Go-Go’s’ “Our Lips Are Sealed” with older sis Haylie, who cowrote tracks on Metamorphosis and is working on her own edgier rock album. “Edgier”? “When I’m writing for myself,” she says, “I don’t censor myself as much.”

ODDS OF BLENDER 100 APPEARANCE IN 2005: 10-1

UNLIKELY CAREER MOVE
25 Jail
The big house may not be the best place to drop your soap, but it is a good environment to snag a record contract. The rapper Shyne, imprisoned for assault for his role in the 1999 P. Diddy/J. Lo nightclub shooting, recently signed a deal with Def Jam Records that could be worth $3 million.

HONORARY WHITE STRIPE
24 Loretta Lynn
On her Johnny Cash–style “comeback” album, Van Lear Rose, Lynn plugs in with Jack White for a heavy helping of bluesy oomph and garage-rock spunk — the most graceful country-matron second act since Dolly Parton found bluegrass.

THE NEW SCIENTOLOGY
23 Kabbalah
Scientology may “cure” dyslexia, but hot Hollywood pseudo-faith Kaballah goes even further, working on a “cellular level” to provide its red-bracelet-wearing devotees (Madonna, Britney, Paris, Demi)…immortality! Top that, Hubbard!

HARD-KNOCK CLIP
22 Jay-Z’s “99 Problems”
Before he had the bling, the bubbly and Beyoncé, Jay-Z had nothing but Brooklyn. This Mark Romanek–directed video is a haunting love letter to that borough, a guerrilla run through barren projects full of pit-bull fights, sidewalk breakdancers, handgun-wielding kids and full-frontal male nudity.

ROTUND RAPPER
21 Bizarre
He’s fat! He’s deranged! He’s Eminem’s horror-loving homey

He performs wearing a shower cap and spandex. He’s got big, fat man-titties and flaunts them more than Pamela Anderson (that’s him in the “My Band” video hanging shirtless from the ceiling). The best D12 member without a daughter named Hailie — and the only other one you’d be able to pick out of a lineup — is rap’s most likeable weirdo since Ol’ Dirty Bastard.

ODDS OF BLENDER 100 APPEARANCE IN 2005: 18-1

HOTLANTAN
20 Jermaine Dupri
He gets to see Janet’s breast — more than once!

When Janet Jackson showed up for last month’s Blender cover shoot, we couldn’t help but be distracted from the most famous right boobie in pop by a dangling bellybutton ring that read JD’s. As in Jermaine Dupri, the producer/label owner/former Whodini backup dancer who clearly knows how to stake his territory. Dupri launched his executive life at age 18, pimping Kris Kross’s kid-rap, and has since helped spearhead the platinum-heavy careers of Jagged Edge, Bow Wow and St. Louis newbie J-Kwon. His own album, Green Light, is due this year.

ODDS OF BLENDER 100 APPEARANCE IN 2005: 14-1

GIRL GONE WILD!
19 Lindsay Lohan
The Mean Girls heroine makes her next move: rock star!

She may have just turned 18, but Lindsay Lohan’s hair is already falling out. It’s nearing 9 P.M. in a New York City photo studio, and two stylists are picking at the starlet’s head — her extensions are “acting up.” Lohan smiles even as auburn strands get yanked and rearranged behind her. Clearly, being Hollywood’s hottest teen star and newest sex symbol takes work — patience doesn’t hurt, either.

An edgier PG-13 to Hilary Duff’s G-rated cuteness, Lohan broke through with Disney’s 2003 Freaky Friday. Her rich, chameleon-like performance in Mean Girls propelled the dark comedy to a $25 million opening and shot her into the A-list. Her talents don’t stop at acting: After learning guitar for Freaky Friday, she’s contributed totally unembarrassing power pop to two of her films’ soundtracks. “I want to have an album out by next summer,” she says, listing influences from Jet to Madonna to Outkast. “My voice is raspy, so it’s easier for me to do rock, but I’m into hip-hop, too.”

Besides juggling scripts (next up is a Love Bug remake) and songs, Lohan has had to contend with the tabloids’ sudden fascination. She’s been lumped in with “out-of-control” party girls Britney Spears, Mischa Barton and pal Paris Hilton. “If I work all day,” she shrugs, “I wanna have fun. I won’t say we don’t ever go out and have drinks — it’s what you do when you’re growing up.” There is one rumor, however, she wants no part of: “The whole implant thing? I don’t think I could ever do that — it’s terrifying to me. It’s silly to say I would get plastic surgery at my age. It’s like, you’re young, you’re perky — whatever!” –Jonah Weiner

ODDS OF BLENDER 100 APPEARANCE IN 2005: 4-1

KING OF R&B
18 Usher
Ladies and gents, 2004’s biggest pop star

Mesmerized by his boyish swagger and Jacko-worthy moves — and intrigued by his high-profile breakup with TLC’s Chilli, the live-in girlfriend he cheated on — sensitive thugs and lovelorn ladies alike lifted Usher’s Confessions CD to the number 1 slot for two months running. Call him the new New Jack hustler: His croon-crunk hybrids work in the club and the bedroom. “R&B hasn’t had anyone like him since Bobby Brown,” says Stephen Hill, a senior VP at BET.

ODDS OF BLENDER 100 APPEARANCE IN 2005: 2-1

FREEK-A-LEEK!
17 Outkast
Atlanta’s proudest sons branch out into Hollywood and…day care?

Just months after Outkast’s historic Best Album Grammy win, André 3000 is clearing a spot in his trophy case for…an Oscar? The dapper MC has packed his purple boas and latex turbans for Hollywood: He’s filming Be Cool, a mob comedy with John Travolta and Uma Thurman, will star as Jimi Hendrix in a planned Hughes brothers biopic and has signed on for the lead in a race-driven love story. Aside from launching pal Sleepy Brown’s career, family man Big Boi is spending time at home, playing with his kids and changing some stank Huggies.

ODDS OF BLENDER 100 APPEARANCE IN 2005: 3-2

ADDICTION DU JOUR
16 Painkillers
The Cinderella of narcotics, prescription painkillers such as OxyContin have been rescued from the unglamorous world of migraines and menstrual cramps thanks to the superstar patronage of Courtney Love, Kelly Osbourne and Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy.

RETURN TO AWESOMENESS
15 Madonna’s World Tour
When Madge last took to the stage in 2001, she skimped on vintage hits for late-career techno. Not so this summer, as she has promised to dig deep into her catalog on this national tour. Material Girl superfan Britney Spears tells Blender she’s most looking forward to seeing “Ray of Light.”

FIGHT FOR YOUR RIGHTS
14 Election-Year Activism
With the 2004 presidential election approaching, Ludacris, Modest Mouse, the Dixie Chicks and many others are helping to register young voters at shows and online, while partisan groups like Concerts for Kerry and the GOP-owned “Reggie” tour bus target like-minded twentysomethings.

MEAN BOYS SUCK
13 Avril Lavigne
The mall-punk champion has just released the scathing breakup album Under My Skin, her follow-up to the 14 million–selling Let Go. The lead single, “Don’t Tell Me,” is the perfect track with which to ice a grabby boyfriend.

MOPEY THROWBACK!
12 Late-’80s Alterna-Pop
Pixies, Cure, Morrissey strike again

One sure way to slow the aging process is to see the bands you got high to in college 15 years ago. So the mainstays of college radio, circa 1989, are hitting the road this summer. The famously combative Pixies have buried the hatchet for a tour, the Cure are blowing up festivals with oldies-heavy set lists and even Morrissey is dragging his celibate ass back into circulation. Just don’t count on a Smiths reunion: Moz has declared that “it really is destroyed.”

ODDS OF BLENDER 100 APPEARANCE IN 2005: 500-1

HOTIZZLE SHIZZLE
11 Snoop Dogg
Hip-hop’s funniest actor gets back behind the mic

From stealing scenes in Starsky & Hutch and Soul Plane to stealing shows on tour with Korn and Linkin Park this summer, Calvin Broadus does what Ice-T and Will Smith can’t — goes Hollywood and stays ’hood. Out now: the debut from 213, his Long Beach supergroup with Nate Dogg and Warren G. Next: A big-budget, major-label solo album. Oh, right, and he still had time to host his own Girls Gone Wild DVD.

ODDS OF BLENDER 100 APPEARANCE IN 2005: 3-1

MEAN GIRL
10 Paris Hilton
You’ve seen her snot it up on Fox and sex it up on your PC — now, Paris wants to be on your iPod!

As if torturing one American family weren’t enough, Hilton is spending this summer looking down her nose at the entire nation — one state at a time — on Fox’s The Simple Life 2: Road Trip. What’s next for the rich girl who’s conquered prime-time TV and Internet-porn downloads? A pop career, of course! She’s hard at work with JC Chasez producer Robb Boldt on a late-summer album. Check out the lead single, “Screwed,” a sunny pop-rock love song that surprisingly contains no references to the hardships of carrying heavy shopping bags between Rodeo Drive boutiques.

ODDS OF BLENDER 100 APPEARANCE IN 2005: 7-1

KING OF CRUNK!
9 Lil Jon
Hits! Energy drinks! Porno! All in a day’s work for the Dirty South’s new hero

Lil Jon has one vicious hangover. “I was up partying until 9 A.M.,” he croaks, padding slowly through his hotel lobby in a 95-degree early-afternoon blaze. It’s so humid here in Jamaica’s Montego Bay that the air sits on your skin like a damp bathrobe. Helmeted under shoulder-length dreadlocks and swallowed in an oversize black T-shirt, Jon seems about as comfortable as a sheepdog locked in a sweltering car. He rubs his temple and manages a grin, flashing a gnarled lattice of gold and ice: “I don’t feel crunk, man.”

Lil Jon not feeling crunk is like water not feeling wet. The 30-year-old MC and producer has made crunk — Southern slang for a state of lung-busting, club-closing exuberance and the bass-heavy music that promotes it — his raison d’être. In songs and videos, he’s like hip-hop’s Macho Man Randy Savage: mouth perpetually open in a howl, hair flung madly, voice a gravelly bellow. His mission statement is simple — partying, rowdiness and…did we mention partying?

He has reason to celebrate: The past year has been the wildest of Lil Jon’s life. After clunking in at a modest number 56 on the pop charts, Lil Jon and the Eastside Boyz’s fourth album, Kings of Crunk, soldiered on to sell more than 2 million copies. Comedy Central’s Dave Chappelle turned Jon’s guttural vocal signatures — “Yeaaah!” “What!?” and “Okaaay!” — into this year’s most unavoidable dorm-room impression. (“Dave does me pretty good,” Jon chuckles. “I’d like to get him on my next album.”) And his chart-topping beat and screaming hook for Usher’s “Yeah!” have made him the most visible R&B producer since Pharrell. “I got a check with four zeroes in it for that song,” he says, smiling. “The big check with all the royalties won’t come until next year.”

Today, though, we’re privy to a quieter Lil Jon — and it’s only partly due to his Hennessy shell-shock. “The wild dude y’all see on TV? That’s Lil Jon the star,” says Jermaine Dupri, the rap impresario who gave Jon his first biz job as an A&R man at So So Def Recordings. “In real life, it’s a much calmer situation: He’s a working man, putting things together.”

To wit, Jon has released a high-energy performance drink (named, if you couldn’t guess, Crunk!!!), partnered with Oakley for special-edition sunglasses, trademarked the word crunk and — oh, yeah — produced and hosted a DVD called Lil Jon and the Eastside Boyz: American Sex Series. “I made the first crunk porno,” he notes.


Eleven years ago, Jonathan Smith had just graduated from Frederick Douglass High School, a skater kid who listened to the Dead Kennedys and Public Image Ltd. “I grew up in the same ’hood Outkast comes from, Southwest Atlanta. It’s like upper-middle-class for black people.” His father “welded shit” at Lockheed Martin, and his mother was a nurse and National Reservist. “She just got called to active duty because of Iraq,” Jon says. “Went through basic training, learned how to use guns — she’s tough.”

In 1993, he saw his friend Emperor Searcy DJ at a house party. Something clicked: “He went off to the navy, I learned how to spin, and when he came back I was playing the hottest clubs in Atlanta.” Jon came to the attention of Dupri, who hired him for his keen ear. “My salary back then was $25,000 a year,” Jon mock-shudders, bugging his eyes.

He made the jump into performing in 1997, assembling a trio with friends Lil Bo and Big Sam. They quickly became Dirty South luminaries, infamous for concerts that played more like Royal Rumbles: “We played this Louisiana club a couple years ago. It held only 500 people, but there were about 1,500 jammed in there. We doin’ our songs, they goin’ bananas and a fight breaks out. Four cops were there, and people started fighting the police, so they started spraying Mace. We kept right on performing — if somebody gets knocked the fuck out, that’s a good concert!”

Lil Jon’s word to the wise: Approach the studio as though it’s a dance-floor brawl. “We pack into the booth and all get on one mic, pushing and shoving, elbowing like we really in the club. I come out soaking wet.” To maintain that energy on record, Jon needs a daily club injection: “You gotta go to the club, see what people are doing, find new ways of making girls dance.”

Lil Jon’s biggest fear is that he’ll become a one-trick pony, an iced-out flash in the pan doomed to go the way of “Where’s the beef?” “I’m going into the new album like, ‘Damn! What the hell am I gonna make up now?’” He’s got two tricks up his sleeve, though. The first: “Crunk-rock. I’m teaming up with Korn to do a track, and Rick Rubin wants to work with me. I’d love to hook up with Linkin Park.” The second is his son, Nathan, of whom he has custody: “He’s 6, already plays piano — I want him to start making beats by 10. He’ll be the beatmaker; I’ll be his manager.”

Right this moment, though, there are more pressing matters at hand. Lil Jon has a concert tonight, and he’s dangerously un-crunk. Hunched over in his chair, he turns to Blender and smiles. “I gotta go sleep that liquor off.” –Jonah Weiner

ODDS OF BLENDER 100 APPEARANCE IN 2005: 12-1

NEWLYWED KNOCKOUT
8 Jessica Simpson
America’s favorite ex-virgin can’t be stopped

Hit TV shows. Hit records. Marital sex. Is there anything Jessica Simpson can’t do (except tell the difference between chicken and tuna)? Apparently not. She has beaten out Britney for the coveted role of Daisy Duke in the movie remake of The Dukes of Hazzard and, with hubby Nick Lachey, is pitching a book about how to have a happy marriage. “We are not scholars on relationships,” she says, “but I think we’re definitely in a groove.” Wait, does that mean there’s something they are scholars on?

ODDS OF BLENDER 100 APPEARANCE IN 2005: 8-1

TECH REVOLUTION
7 Apple Computer
Silicon Valley saves the music biz

Robbie Williams says his iPod is “amazing.” Moby claims he “can’t imagine music any other way.” Chris Rock has two of them. You can even turn it into a tiny FM radio station with a $35 iTrip Transmitter, or record on it with a $35 mic. Beyond the 3 million iPods that have fattened its coffers, though, Apple’s been working overtime for music lovers. The iTunes Music Store sold 70 million downloads in its first year, recently added weekly freebies and has started to feature out-of-print rarities like early Motown singles. GarageBand, Apple’s music-recording software, hasn’t yielded any hits yet, but just wait until they roll out the iGroupie feature.

ODDS OF BLENDER 100 APPEARANCE IN 2005: 7-1

NAUGHTY BUT NICE
6 Beyoncé
Why Jay-Z is the luckiest man alive!

She kicked off our inaugural Blender 100 in the top slot. A year later, she’s still smoldering: demurely denying rumors of an impending marriage to Jay-Z, slithering around in an oversize martini glass in her “Naughty Girl” video, prepping for a new Destiny’s Child album, costarring in the new Pink Panther film. Says Usher, who sashays alongside her in “Naughty Girl”: “Beyoncé is truly a delicacy of entertainment.” Seconds, please!

ODDS OF BLENDER 100 APPEARANCE IN 2005: 3-1

PREP-HOP HOORAY!
5 Kanye West
How a Chicago backpacker became a hip-hop mastermind
Forget Pharrell and Dr. Dre: Kanye West is hip-hop’s new double trouble, producing essential songs by Jay-Z, Brandy and others, and then picking up the mic and recording the year’s best hip-hop album. Even West knows the shift was unlikely: “I don’t look like a rapper, I don’t have the best voice, and I definitely didn’t have the biggest push behind me.”

ODDS OF BLENDER 100 APPEARANCE IN 2005: 6-1

JACK OF ALL TRADES
4 Jack White
Retro rock’s reigning genius punches up enemies, jump-starts Loretta Lynn’s career

Since the release of the White Stripes’ Grammy-winning Elephant last year, Jack White has been busy showing off his skills at soundtrack writing (Cold Mountain), acting (Coffee and Cigarettes) and beating the crap out of the lead singer of the Von Bondies. If that wasn’t enough, he found time to produce Van Lear Rose, only the second album in 15 years from country icon Loretta Lynn. “I see little old Jack becoming one of the greatest producers there is,” says the famously bullshit-free 70-year-old.

ODDS OF BLENDER 100 APPEARANCE IN 2005: 7-5

FLYING SOLO
3 Gwen Stefani
The No Doubt princess trades in her homeys for Outkast and Martin Scorsese

Sure, everyone loves No Doubt’s wacky mohawked drummer. But who hasn’t wondered when Gwen Stefani would give her band chums a vacation and emerge as the genre-melding megastar God intended her to be? Wonder no more! This November, catch her as ’30s Hollywood starlet Jean Harlow in Martin Scorsese’s Howard Hughes biopic The Aviator. Meanwhile, for her as-yet-untitled debut solo album, Stefani hired a hit-making dream team: Dallas Austin, Linda Perry, Tim Armstrong, the Matrix, Missy Elliott, André 3000 and (pause to catch breath) the Neptunes. Call her Pink Plus.

ODDS OF BLENDER 100 APPEARANCE IN 2005 Even

KING OF THE WORLD!
2 Eminem
Marshall Mathers hits the road with D12 — and hits the studio for his solo return!

It’s been two years since his 9 million–selling Eminem Show album, but Em never left us. Fending off accusations of racism, burning through the screen in 8 Mile and mooning more paparazzi than Sean Penn ever dreamed of punching, he has mastered the art of the larger-than-life rock star, tapping nerves and goofing off grandly. This year, he’ll remind us that he makes music, too — D12’s new album outsold their double-platinum debut by a landslide, and he’s currently hunkering down in the studio to record his fourth LP, due at year’s end.

ODDS OF BLENDER 100 APPEARANCE IN 2005: 2-7

THE BLENDER 100 #1
1 Dave Chappelle