KINGS OF LEON: King Of The Rodeo

While the Kings of Leon got pegged early in the arena of publicity headline grabbing as the critic's southern Strokes. Now I never really bought into that bit of positioning statement as the band is really quite distinct in their own style. Their I did have a problem with their po' hair, though. But not as much as Hot Hot Heat's Steve Bays. Lots of square dancing to watch here. Watch the video (qt).

THE NEW PORNOGRAPHERS: Use It

Thanks to Chromewaves for originally pointing to this brand new video from the New Pornographers. In this video all the limp and dazed band members are physically animated by Dieter Sprockets type puppeteers. Of note, comedian and noted hipster David Cross appears as one puppeteer. And that other puppeteer in that very recognizable tartan hat? Could it be? Is that...? Nardwuar? Strangely missing in action is sultry indie alt country queen and NP member Neko Case. Watch the video (real).

STINA NORDENSTAM: Get On With Your Life

Swedish pop eccentric Stina Nordenstam gets a bit of marketing push in unconquered North America with a V2 distribution deal and this sparkling new video. I've followed much of Stina's career, snapping up her cd's whenever I found myself in her native city of Stockholm. This wonderful little pop song is from her sixth full length of jazzy, pop-rock and experimental folk, The World Is Saved. Watch the video (win).

THE ORGAN: Memorize The City

Second single from the Vancouver indie band that continues to blow away everyone that hears them. And while my prior criticism of their lack of.. err.. motion, this video is filled with the terrific sense of energy of the city with quick cuts and blazing neon street scapes. And the lasses even kick up their heels for a little bit of shaking and boogie! But not too much. Watch the video (real).

LADYTRON: Jet Age

Here's an older track from the magnificent Liverpool based Ladytron. From their debut album entitled 604,k this is the web video directed by Ben Cruz in stunning "the band is nowhere in sight" cinematography. For some reason, this track always shuffles in the the playlist while I'm waiting in airports, which seems to be quite a bit these days. Everytime it does, it just feels so apropos I can't help but snicker. Watch the video (qt).

MEDICINE: Smile To My Eyes

What do you get when you mix an LA folk virtuso and the talents of Sharon Lee, daughter of the kung fu screen legend, Bruce Lee? You get a sputtering single of swirling vocal melodies and jagged production that is equal parts unconventional, experimental and hummably pop structured. Admittedly the full length, The Mechanical Forces of Love, is a mixed, sometimes difficult affair, but this track shines as a breakout. Watch the video (real).

LEVY: Rotten Love

How beautiful is this little diddie from this New York band? I just want to cuddle up and nuzzle my laptop. uuuuhh... Honey, come back! I meant I want to cuddle with you! I was joking about the laptop thing! Please, come back! At least come watch the video (qt). Honey?

THE DANDY WARHOLS: Smoke It

The Dandy's are back with their Odditorium or Warlords of Mars album. Thankfully the painfull production that marred Welcome to the Monkey House has been exiled back to the teased and overly frosted hair tragedy eighties (sorry Nick Rhodes, just didn't dig it). The Portland power pop rockers are back at good ole rollicking and rolling and this marks their first return single. Watch the video (qt).

DEATH CAB FOR CUTIE: Soul Meets Body

Originally a Ben Gibbard solo project, the alt rock band is now poised on the release of its latest effort entitled Plans. The Postal Service alumnus was recently featured in Wired Magazine tipping his favourite MP3 blogs including all purpose MP3 blog Music For Robots, hip hop site Soul Sides and indie edited for cred Said the Gramophone. Watch the video (qt). UPDATED: video (qt).

RADIOHEAD: I Might Be Wrong

How can a song entitle "I Might Be Wrong" be so right? Thom Yorke and company find pondering that very question in this unearthed video from their Amnesiac album. A classic song and a vapour brothers of a video. And if your interested on how right Radiohead is, you too can read their blog: Dead Air Space.Watch the video (qt).

THE SHINS: Pink Bullets

Look at those cute origami cows. They sing amazing like lead Shins singer James Mercer. I wonder if they're also from Albuquerque? After a little digging, I found out the answer is: no. The little paper pink cows are from Israel, the spawn of the Tel Aviv army recruit Adam Bizanski. "Here's this guy from Israel — in the Israeli army, actually — and he made this cool, paper-motion video for us." Relaxing folksie pop music for the bovine in you. Watch the video (qt).

VITALIC: My Friend Dario

Strut yer stuff! Vitalic is the French heir to the electroclash throne, whose impressive debut "OK Cowboy" threatens to relocate the Brooklyn based stranglehold on angularly tailored electro beats back to the Paris fashion capital. This is a brilliant track and video- those sexy low rise bikini bottomed vixens, those mullet thrashing air-guitar ripping metal head hipsters! Fischerspooner who? That was last season! The man behind Vitalic is Pascal Arbez and his legion of fans include Daft Punk, The White Stripes and Sparks. Watch the video (qt).

FEIST: Mushaboom

Godbless Waxy.org for tracking down the Mushaboom video. I've spend countless hours scrubbing the 'net, looking everywhere for this clip in reasonable quality. I was starting to loose hope. Thankfully, the lovely Miss Leslie Feist and this seminal pop favourite is now viewable en mass, allowing the wonderful tool we call a Music Promo do what it was originally designed to do: PROMOTE. Did my animosity get in the way of telling you how terrific this track is? Watch the video (qt).

THE BRAVERY: Unconditional

New York preeners The Bravery pout and pose their way into our shallow little hearts with this video of unconditional rockstardom. I've been deliberate in avoiding the whole The Bravery vs The Killers bruhaha (oh baby, it is real, bring it on!). But with the much polished re-release of this track (the UK video shown here is much more bling), I will weight the following facts for your consideration:

The Bravery singer Sam Endicott's maudlin hair affectation vs The Killers singer Brandon Flowers dandy use of eyeliner and unmasculine costumery. POINT: The Killers

The Bravery's downtown hipsterati New York address vs The Killers' Las Vegas strip malls and strippers sprawl. POINT: The Bravery

The Bravery's super indie record label vs The Killers totally underground record label. POINT: none awarded

The Bravery's painfully dismal stage presence vs The Killers 'practicing' Mormon lead singer. POINT: too tough to call

The coincidental Hipster Band 101 use of "The" in naming their respective bands. POINT: negative one bazillion each

Conclusion: Both bands are as genuine as processed cheese slices. Watch the video (win).

THE HIGH SPEED SCENE: Fuck And Spend

Rocking the LA scene since assembling in September 2001, The High Speed Scene comprises of drummer Adam, singer guitarist Max and bassist Domen. This notebook scribbler inspired video sees the power punk pop trio getting to all sorts of random animated nonsense. Good, light fun with expletives intact! From the animators at L.A.'s Nylon Motion [with thanks to Joe]. Watch the video (qt).

FIONA APPLE: Parting Gift

The New York based enfant terrible of sultry, world weary, and sometimes disturbed yet always controversial piano pop is finally out with her third full player. Fiona speaks to Rolling Stone Magazine about the whole Sony shelving "Extraordinary Machine" fiasco and essentially disavows any knowledge of what really happened. Hundreds of "Free Fiona" fanatics everywhere are pleased and confused all at the same time. Watch the video (qt).

DUNGEN: Panda

Swedish delights from the man named Gustav Ejstes. The main man behind Dungen (pronounced Doon-Yen) mixes his influences of psychedelic rock, sylvanic violin folk, and a tiny sprinkle of skratch pickle hip hop into a intriguing musical mutation. This video will have you seeing the forest for the purple smoke tinted trees. Watch the video (qt).

DOVES: Sky Starts Falling

Absolutely stunning video from the Manchester boys. The video has the choreographed aeronautical ambitions of a morbidly overbudget Howard Hughes film and the stammering military percussion of a crossover rock anthem. A definite top contender for best video of the year. Directed by Ruben Sutherland. Watch the music video (UPDATED qt) or music video (real).

SIGUR RÓS: Viðrar Vel Til Loftárása

Moving piece of orchestral Icelandic pop from the Reykjavik based band. Watch as two boys share their love of football, fishing and making out. It's sweet, homoerotic and confrontational all at the same time. The new record, Takk, which has all the indie kids salivating is due for a European release September 12. Watch the video (win).

APHEX TWIN: Rubber Johnny

More nightmare inducing imagery from the devious mind of Chris Cunningham. The cacophony soundtrack of electronic splice and dice is laid out by Richard D. James, the Aphex twin. It was suggested to me that the night vision bloated headed spectacle of this video was inspired by Paris Hilton's legendary sex tape. I'm not sure if that's Tinkerbell in the video, but I can assure you, that is not Paris Hilton (hint: no cell phone). Watch the video (win).

LES RYTHMES DIGITALES: Jacques Your Body

Jacque Lu Cont's eighties inspired electro project is revived as this single, originally released in in 1999 gets a re-release and marketing push. The concept of the video is an amusing "how to" of performing death defying action stunts. Watch the video (qt).

FATAL TOURIST: Potent

Reader Jeremy W. points me to this totally trippy little video of indie glitch pop. Fatal Tourist is a the one man creation of Chris Pine and his army of modded synths. The low-fi video features visitors. Vengeful visitors. Watch the video (qt).

GREEN DAY: Holiday

Amazing song, unremarkable video. I guess that's why they cleaned up at the MTV Video Awards. Did anyone watch it? I've fallen out with award shows altogether, I amaze myself with how much I have come to loath them. It's like watching some egomaniacal pagent of excess and undereducation where talent is replaced by popularity and taste is beated to death by tack. Watch the video (qt).

FRANZ FERDINAND: Do You Want To

They're thin. They're dorky. And godbless, they're back. The Scottish lads strut their way back into the limelight with this irresistable new video. I literally cannot stop doot dooing. The video itself is one part party, one party gig, and two parts art show. Watch the video (qt).

GOLDFRAPP: Train

While I wait panting for the next Goldfrapp single from the Supernature record to be released, here's another glorious Dawn Shadforth directed gem from the sexy electroglam duo. This video is often credited as being one of the catalysts of the burlesque revival recently experienced. Now come on, y'all- who's secretly wearing pasties under those shirts? Watch the video (real).

BEBEL GILBERTO: Winter

The Brazillian bossa nova siren takes her largely acoustic second album and, with the help of Finnish collective Nuspirit Helsinki, gives this track a soulful house spin. The largely white video is a clean and refreshing as it sounds. Watch the video (qt).

X-PRESS 2: Give It

When I first hear this new release, I was shocked to find out it was techno tribal outfit X-Press 2. Their former harder edge electronic sound is gone, replaced by a southern, gospel twang reminiscent of Alabama 3, the band most people would recognize from their title song from The Sopranos. This, of course, baffles me, as the success of Alabama 3's original southern electronic novelty sound I find rather fleeting. Just like the line in the title lyric, I guess I should give it a little more time. Watch the video (qt).

MOLOKO: Familiar Feeling

Moloko's Roisin Murphy and Mark Brydon dance a bit of Northern Soul on this incredible short film slash video by renown photographer Elaine Constantine. Iconic in imagery, after watching this video, all you'll long for is to dance. Watch the video (win).

THE RAVEONETTES: That Great Love Sound

A wickedly twisted video from the second release of the dogme Danish rockabilly duo. As demonstrated in this clip, the great love sound is only matched by that great homicidal urge. How would you fantasize your murderous lovers intent? Let this video count the ways. Watch the video (win).

IGGY POP: Little Know It All

The embalmed corpse of Iggy Pop is animated once more to provide the zombie masses with oodles of jerky, yet solid, Detroit punk sound. With guesters from Whitby, Ontario, punk popsters Sum 41. Watch the video (real).