Every week, Hype Monitor wades through the most buzzed-about bands all across the Internet. This week: a few choice picks from some buzzworthy acts on the Hype Monitor.

The Band: Vivian Girls
The Buzz: New York Trio flashes back to 1986, throwing girl group harmonies over roaring guitars.
Listen If: You often find yourself wishing the Ronnettes had bigger amps — or if you know "C86" isn't a sci-fi movie.
Key Track: "Wild Eyes," which speeds by in a blur of stuttering snare, growling guitars and ethereal vocals.

The Band: Kudu
The Buzz: Brooklyn group builds bleak electropop, haunting and sublime.
Listen If: You think life is better with the lights out.
Key Track: "Neon Graveyard (Drop the Lime Remix)," where the band's usually dour demeanor gets shaken up by clattering drums.

The Band: Blu & Exile
The Buzz: Nimble LA rapper turns out songs full of smarts and soul.
Listen If: You're starting to get tired of all this Lil Wayne hubbub, too.
Key Track: "Blu Collar Worker," where Blu gets blue over what it takes to pay the bills while chipmunk soul chatters in the background.

Who: Minnesota folk king Mason Jennings, who gets spiritual and explores where babies come from on his new album In the Ever.

Sounds Like: Having just signed to Brushfire Records, the easy comparison is Jennings' good friend, current tour mate and Brushfire owner Jack Johnson. But Jennings also draws from the Minnesota rock scene, Comes a Time-era Neil Young and his favorite band, Led Zeppelin — all channeled through acoustic guitars. "Whenever I have electric guitars going, my voice just disappears. I'm too mellow," Jennings says of his aspirations to be Robert Plant.

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Every week, Hype Monitor wades through the most buzzed-about bands all across the Internet. This week: a few choice picks from some buzzworthy acts on the Hype Monitor.

The Band: Wale
The Buzz: DC rapper with nimble flow nips funk and go-go, proving brainy and fun aren't mutually exclusive.
Listen If: You used to go straight from debate meets to nightclub teen nights.
Key Track: "D.C. Gorillaz," with it's wise-ass chorus, "You ain't got a chance, if you ain't got a dance." Wale's Seinfeld-sampling Mixtape About Nothing is available for free at elitaste.com.

The Band: A-Trak
The Buzz: Kanye's touring DJ nets a Nike mixtape and a tiny sliver of the spotlight.
Listen If: You fully believe in the ability of synthesizers to be funky.
Key Track: "Say Whoa," which is that "Oh Yeah" song from Ferris Bueller updated for the 21st Century.

The Band: Seun Kuti
The Buzz: Son of Afrobeat great carries on father's legacy, band, sound.
Listen If: Two drums are two too few, and you often fantasize about creating a James Brown marching band.
Key Track: "Mosquito Song," where scurrying percussion and hazy brass wrestle for supremacy against a busy, bobbing bassline.

Who: Sydney, Australia dance-punk duo the Presets, whose second album Apocalypso has proven to have more staying power on the Aussie charts than Madonna and Mariah.

Sounds Like: The Rapture with an army of '80s synths. On Apocalyspo, the Presets revel in the darker, more cosmic realm of dance music while still having fun and involuntarily getting people in the mood to move. There's also punk and new wave elements, but just don't call them "Indietronica." "I kind of hate that term," says drummer Kim Moyes.

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Every week, Hype Monitor wades through the most buzzed-about bands all across the Internet. This week: a few choice picks from some buzzworthy acts on the Hype Monitor.

The Band: J*Davey
The Buzz: LA electro/soul combo smoke up a sequencer and sigh over the resulting beats.
Listen If: You wish the new Erykah Badu record was longer, or you miss old, weird Prince.
Key Track: "Turn the Lights Out," which delivers big streaks of synth and pulsing rhythms.

The Band: Dead Heart Bloom
The Buzz: Brainchild of singer/songwriter Boris Skalsky, DHB deliver giant-sized guitar noise topped with gianter-size religious cynicism.
Listen If: You think the National and American Music Club are upbeat.
Key Track: "Come Back," a sublime combination of dour, druggy vocals and corkscrewing guitars. It couldn't be easier to hear, either: the band is giving away their entire EP for free.

The Band: Chris Letcher
The Buzz: South African Singer/Songwriter crafts songs that sound like dawn: low and creaky, slowly building to a big burst of light.
Listen If: You're a sucker for tricky orchestration, pleading vocals and big theatrical flourishes. Or you kinda like Arcade Fire.
Key Track: "Deep Frieze," which opens with a twinkle and crescendos with a great boom.

Who: Indie-pop chanteuse Lykke Li, a worldly Swede whose infectious debut Youth Novels was buzzing long before its Stateside release in May.

Sounds Like: Dance music with a devilish wink. With production by Bjorn Yttling, Youth Novels’ sugary pop, biting lyrics and breathy vocals make heartbreak sound sweet. “I just do music, I don’t know where it comes from or what it is,” says Li, whose influences include Madonna, Velvet Underground, Bob Dylan and hip-hop, of her spontaneous blend. “It just is.”

Vital Stats:

• The daughter of "free-minded old hippies," as she calls her parents, Li, 22, grew up between Stockholm, Sweden, and a mountaintop home in the South of Portugal where “You can grow weed in the backyard,” she recalls of her unconventional upbringing. “Maybe you’re not allowed to say that?”

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Alejandro Escovedo's latest album Real Animal earned three and a half stars in our latest issue (out tomorrow!), and critic Will Hermes writes, "as a solo artist, [Escovedo]'s transcended labels, and his latest is a chrome-bright autobiographical song cycle with flashbacks that roar into the present." Sample the goodness for yourself: here's "Real as an Animal - Live From Sirius Satellite Radio":

Click above to watch the premiere of the Duke Spirit's new video for "Lassoo," which was shot live at London's 229 Club in November 2007. And here's a bonus! When the English rockers were in New York recently, Rolling Stone chased them downtown to a park and got them to play two acoustic tunes for us. To watch videos of those performances, click below:

"The Step and the Walk" live in NYC

"Dog Roses" live in NYC

While we had the Duke Spirit in our clutches, we asked them about the songs they'd performed, and what songs they like to perform to.

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The Band: Ladyhawke
The Buzz: Pouty New Zealand chanteuse (real name: Pip Brown) stimulates your Lauper gland.
Listen If: You can complete this lyric: "I remember hating you for loving me/Riding on the __________."
Key Track: "Back of the Van," a song so terrifically '80s you can almost taste the Aqua Net.

The Band: Tanya Morgan
The Buzz: Never mind the name — Tanya Morgan is a hip-hop trio with an affinity for soul breaks, big beats and complex, conscious lyrics.
Listen If: You can name the four essential elements of hip-hop, and you're bummed that most popular rappers cannot.
Key Track: "Threemcees," which introduces the world to the concept of a "bi-polar bear." Which is perhaps a distant relative to the "Hypochondrioctopus"?

The Band: Black Ghosts
The Buzz: London electro duo gaining traction thanks to a recent Diplo remix.
Listen If: You used to play Colecovision just for the soundtracks.
Key Track: That Diplo remix of "Repetition Kills You," which twists the band's bright bounce down 10 octaves until it sounds like something from Violator.

Who: Seattle's harmonic five piece Fleet Foxes, who follow-up a critically-acclaimed EP and intense live performances with their self-titled debut album.

Sounds Like: A mixture of fellow Sub Poppers Band of Horses and Iron & Wine, Fleet Foxes create harmonic pop jams. Think CSNY performing Pet Sounds. "I'm just a sucker for harmonies," says frontman Robin Pecknold.

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