MEN
MEN look like men. They’re even called MEN. But most of them are actually female! Two of the androgynous girls are J.D. and Johanna from Le Tigre, so MEN is considered a Le Tigre side-project, and that gives you a good idea of what to expect i.e. ace electro-pop music with fun lyrics. Le Tigre are more rock while MEN is more dance-poppy, sounding like a mix of The Sounds, CSS and early Scissor Sisters. Safe to say I’m very impressed! Credit Card Baby and Off My Back are my favourites at the moment, and I hope I’ll be able to buy their album soon. Le Tigre have a big following among the indie fashionista crowd, and since electro-pop is the ‘in’ sound at the moment, I think MEN’s music will go down pretty well. I’m not sure they’ll ever be famous enough to play the MEN Arena, though!
Hit Potential: 70% Poptasticness: 88%
Ed Drewett
I always think that Erik Hassle sounds a lot like fellow Swede, Vincent, but new British singer Ed Drewett sounds even more like him. Ed is a kind of soulful indie balladeer, not as exciting as Vincent or Erik, but he’s got some really nice songs. A cover of Miss Blue would still not go amiss, though! He’s recently signed a major label deal in the UK and is working on music at the moment, so it’ll probably be a while until we hear him in the charts, but I think there’s a good chance he will make an appearance in the top ten in the near future. There are a lot of singers like this around at the moment, though, such as the aforementioned Erik and Dan Black and Daniel Merriweather, so he’ll need to come out with a really strong single in order to stand out.
Hit Potential: 66% Poptasticness: 74%