Two years ago, something finally went right for the Heavy. After almost a decade of inexplicable U.K. indifference to their swaggering garage rock and sweaty R&B, the then-intermittently gigging quartet found an appreciative audience -- 5,000 miles from their tiny hometown of Noid, England -- when the band was invited to Austin, Texas, for the South by Southwest festival.

It's been a momentous week for Coldplay in the U.K. They've sold 300,000 copies of their new album, Viva La Vida, in just three days, but a seemingly anxiety-wrecked Chris Martin has stormed out (albeit politely) of two press interviews.

Screwing a cigarette into his mouth, which he clamps between his teeth like a cowboy Clint Eastwood, Pete Doherty prowls around his suite at London's K West hotel as if scouting for potential escape routes.

All told, 2002 was a vintage year for the Hives. Nearly a decade after their inception in Fagersta, a pinprick-size Swedish town (population: 12,000), the quintet found themselves hailed as part of rock's young new ruling class.