They won't lift you up, but they'll never let you down.

"People maybe think that I'm this electronic-music-obsessed songstress, but I'm not at all. My heart is with simplicity and big songs that build."

To make the most of her limited resources, Hayes made Mostly True Stories the cheapest and simplest way she knew how: in front of a live studio audience.

It'd been four years since Jill Sobule's last disc, and more than three times as long since she had a hit with "I Kissed a Girl." Then Katy Perry owned the summer with her own love-it-or-hate-it single, and some were itching for a catfight between the two self-proclaimed girl kissers.

"Welcome to the Third World" is a third-generation reproduction of the quippy hipster come-ons that built their reputation, and "The Legend of the Last of the Outlaw Truckers aka The Ballad of Sheriff Shorty" turns immaculately tousled frontman Courtney Taylor-Taylor into a gruff space cowboy.

See, they're both Geminis, and if she didn't already have a twin brother, you'd almost swear Alanis and Ice Cube were separated at birth. Still can't choose between them? Read the facts and decide for yourself.

Their dad, Dennis, calls them "the indie Partridge Family."

What sets Shields apart from every other pedal-pusher is his insatiable taste for texture. Loveless teems with woozy white noise and tons of tremolo.

It's as raw as it gets, but Wainwright's impeccable lineage ensures there's a heavenly choir to blunt the blow.

"No love is uncomplicated, but my new relationship is much less complicated than my other relationship that I had while living in Philly. I'm totally in love and am with an amazing person and I know that comes out in my newer songs."