By DAN AQUILANTEand MAXINE SHEN
Last updated: 6:49 am
January 6, 2009
Posted: 2:27 am
January 6, 2009
IT'S a new year - which means a whole new crop of musicians vying to be this year's Hot New Artist. Here are a half-dozen fresh faces, all releasing albums in the next six months, to keep an eye - and ear - on.
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GIN WIGMORE
Make mine a Gin Wigmore. No, that isn't a trendy froufrou drink - she's New Zealand's latest musical export.
The 22-year-old platinum-blond singer has a melodic yet raspy cigarettes 'n' whiskey voice that was born of the blues. She writes smart songs that would work in either a coffeehouse or an arena - something she proved last summer when both John Mellencamp and Sheryl Crow tapped her as their opening act during their separate tours of Australia and New Zealand.
Wigmore's allure is partially due to her waif-like good looks, but there's an intangible honesty in her music - you can't help but believe that's she's already lived the events in her songs. That's as easy to hear on "These Roses" (download it at nypost.com) as it is on the raw, emotionally honest "Hallelujah" - a tune in which she deals with the life and death of her father. Those songs are centerpieces of her succinct yet rich EP, which paves the way for her full-length debut due this spring.
ERIN McCARLEY
Despite McCarley's killer performance last spring at SXSW, which led to a recording contract, which led to today's release of her debut album, "Love, Save the Empty," she says, "It's hard for me to write about being happy."
Still, when McCarley is lyrically down, she makes sweet music. Take the title track of her record (download it at nypost.com). It's a song of regret and relationship misunderstanding, yet the dark-cloud words are whisked away by the rays of bright piano-power sunshine. It's a ballad that has the same kind of edge that Fiona Apple and Tori Amos cut with. She writes her own music, so there's an emotional power in her tunes that pop interpreters often lack.
She's one of this year's most buzzed-about hopefuls. Her music has already been tapped for girly TV shows like "Grey's Anatomy," "One Tree Hill" and "The Ghost Whisperer." As if that weren't enough, her single "Pony (It's OK)" was last week's iTunes single of the week, and she's David Letterman's musical guest tonight. So far, 2009 is looking fine for McCarley, who also plays Joe's Pub tonight.
CROOKED X
When you were 14, chances are our biggest concern was worrying about how to hide your latest zit. Warming up a crowd for KISS, touring with Ted Nugent and starring in your own MTV special probably never crossed your mind.
But the Oklahoma-based quartet of high school freshmen did all of it last year. Together since fifth grade, Crooked X creates metal-inflected rock 'n' roll for the MySpace generation.
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