Born in Texas but raised in his mother's native Venezuela, Devendra Banhart has built an enviable career out of being an outsider. The 28-year-old singer-songwriter broke out in 2002 with a lo-fi album made up of largely folky ditties he left on people's answering machines, quickly amassing a passionate following.

Last year, after a few canceled concerts, word swirled that Paramore, the Tennessee pop-punk band fronted by the colorful 20-year-old Hayley Williams, would not survive to see their third album.

The cultural landscape is littered with British phenoms aspiring to make it in the States.

What's the first rock album you owned?
My sister bought me Green Day's Dookie when I was 11 because, according to her, I was gay. I'd only listened to musical theater up until that point, so it was something of an intervention. It confused me. I couldn't figure out what Dookie was about. I realized later that not every album has to have a plot.

In 2006, Arctic Monkeys sold more than 350,000 copies of their debut album, Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not, its first week out in the U.K., turning frontman Alex Turner, then just 20, into a tabloid stud overnight.

While he may have parted ways with his signature 'fro since going into self-imposed exile eight years ago, Maxwell certainly hasn't lost the silky-smooth voice that earned him the title "the Marvin Gaye of the '90s."