Bringing a bleak but reverent piece of "Steel Town" Canada, Redlight King filled the Yahoo! Music office with heavy-hearted rock, a tinge of hip-hop, and lots of rich storytelling during is recent visit. The lyrics of singer-songwriter Mark Kasperczyk (better known as Kaz) read like a detailed diary of his experiences growing up and struggling as a musician. With small quirks like a standup bass and Kaz playing a left-handed guitar, Redlight King offers an introspective take on blue-collar living and leaving it behind.

Having grown up in Hamilton, Ontario, and writing songs since childhood, Kaz moved to Los Angeles after hitting the rock bottom outlined in his music. But one of his most buzzed-about accomplishments was getting a blessing from the great Neil Young to let Kaz sample some of his work--not just a piece of a melody, but an actual sample of Neil Young singing "Old Man" with Kaz rounding off the iconic chorus. The middlemen said no, but Young himself said yes. That alone is

Amy Winehouse's final "performance" wasn't much of one. Two days before she was found dead, Winehouse walked out on stage at the iTunes Festival in London, danced around a little, resisted the microphone that was put in her face, and quickly left. It was, at the least, a better ending to her on-stage career than being booed off in Belgrade.

Winehouse's cameo was really intended to be a gesture and not a performance, though. She was there to draw attention to her so-called goddaughter, 15-year-old singer Dionne Bromfield. Little could she have foreseen just how much attention her appearance would draw. It ended up being a greater gift to Bromfield than Winehouse could have intended, with the world suddenly curious to see the doomed diva's last public moments. 

If this was a torch-passing that was somewhat inadvertent in its finality, Bromfield was a far worthier recipient of Winehouse's largess than the term "15-year-old goddaughter" might unpromisingly suggest. Bromfield is an actual

Fresh off her first Coachella performance this year, U.K. songbird Eliza Doolittle stopped by the Yahoo! offices to regale us with her sweet and jazzy pipes. Born Eliza Sophie Caird, her stage name was taken from a character in the play Pygmalion, or better known as Audrey Hepburn's cockney character in the musical adaptation of My Fair Lady. But this Eliza needed no vocal coaching.

Flanked by her stylish musical cohorts and wearing her signature short-shorts and sneakers (and a healthy Coachella tan), Eliza made singing look so simple. Her voice was impressively unwavering, relaxed and resonant. Everyone in the Y! Music room was utterly transfixed, to say the least. Sadly, we can't show the stunning cover of Kanye West's "Runaway" that Eliza sang for us (for licensing reasons), but she often performs it on tour, so do check her out in concert for that treat. Her cover of Cee Lo Green's "F*** You" is also worth the price of admission.

Along with a singing career, Eliza is an emerging

The Horrors' metamorphosis from obnoxious noisemongers to moody, Mercury Prize-nominated melodists on their second album, Primary Colours, is one of the great transformations in rock 'n' roll history. The Horrors are about to release their hotly anticipated third album, Skying, but the British psych-goth band's frontman, Faris Badwan, clearly isn't content with staying in one place for long. So he's undergone yet another drastic musical makeover, forming a drony side-project with Canadian opera soprano/classical multi-instrumentalist Rachel Zeffira--a career move that almost makes his other band's aforementioned switchup seem positively uneventful.

The mystery-shrouded and experimental pair, billing themselves as Cat's Eyes, released their Spectorian self-titled debut disc (recorded at Peter Gabriel's Real World Studios in Bath, England) this past May. Additionally, they recently covered "The Crying Game," the 1964 Geoff Stephens tear-jerker popularized by Boy George for the 1992 movie

What do Sheryl Crow, Barry Manilow, and Foster The People lead singer Mark Foster have in common? They all started out writing commercial jingles--who would've guessed?

L.A.-based trio Foster The People's contagious brand of light-hearted indie-pop has been getting a lot of buzz since their debut single "Pumped Up Kicks" dropped last year. There have been a lot of comparisons to fellow indie band MGMT--which Foster is flattered by--although I personally think "Kicks" echoes the gentle '60s-tinged sound of Peter, Bjorn & John's hit single "Young Folks."

Lead by multi-instrumentalist and jingle veteran Mark Foster, the band is rounded out by Mark Pontius on drums and Cubbie Fink on bass and backing vocals. Initially the band was called "Foster & The People," a simple namecheck to Mark. But after enough mishearings and misspellings, the band acquiesced to their current, kind-of-political-sounding current name. 

Foster The People recently played their first Glastonbury Festival this past

Swarming the music headlines this week, political funnyman Stephen Colbert debuted a musical collaboration produced by the hardestworking man in music, Jack White. With the fanfare surrounding his new song "Charlene II (I'm Over You)," the sequel to "Charlene (I'm Right Behind You)," lurking as his black-suited backing band stood the Black Belles. Not to be confused as just being Colbert's band, the Black Belles are their own band--and a darn good one.

Demonstrating real business savvy, it was a smart move on White's part to recruit the stylish but fledgling band from his own label to thrust into the national spotlight. When introducing the band on "The Colbert Report" this week, White called the band just "the Black Belles," twice, leaving the host to remind the audience "and Stephen Colbert!" The band is technically called "Stephen Colbert with the  Black Belles." And it worked: Here I am, frantically writing about my new obsession, a band that touches right to the black heart of my

Every year a new British baby band comes along that seems set to conquer American shores, become the biggest U.K. import since Coldplay, and singlehandedly save rock 'n' roll. Oftentimes this all turns out to be just NME-generated hype...with an NME-generated backlash already in the works before that band even has a solid U.S. release date. But London's Vaccines just may be different. They just may be the shot in the arm that rock music truly needs.

With a style that owes much to classic American music--everything from Spectorian girl groups to the Ramones to the Beach Boys--and a raucous live show reminiscent of '80s punk and '90s grunge, the Vaccines have timeless and universal rock 'n' roll appeal. In England, they're already massive, with their cheekily titled first album, What Did You Expect From The Vaccines?, debuting at number four on the U.K. charts. Considering that the Vaccines only officially formed last year, their rise has seemed incredbily swift, but the band members

Breakbot is a 30-year-old French producer and DJ (real name: Thibaut Berland) signed to hipster electronic music label Ed Banger Records (home to Justice, SebastiAn, Cassius, Uffie, Mr. Oizo, and others). He is tres cool and tres French, and his new club anthem with Ruckazoid, "Fantasy," makes us wants to dance around with loaves of crusty bread tucked under our arms while wearing berets and striped shirts. But the foxy (and presumably French) female star of the song's video apparently feels the urge to strip off her clothes when she hears it.

The "Fantasy" video depicts an art class full of worked-up male students who just can't seem to concentrate on their canvases once their subject, a brunette beauty, drops her trenchcoat and strikes an unclothed pose. Then one particularly creative, and particularly distracted, student starts fantasizing about the model...and it all culminates in an "A-ha moment," so to speak.

Check out Breakbot's funny work of art below!

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