Hello again. I've spent so much time looking for great lesser known artists that I thought I should make a page that lists all my favorites I've come across. These are artists that are still active today. Hopefully you'll find some that you like here, and remember to spread the love; these people deserve more attention.
If you know of any obscure artists you think I should consider putting up here, or you wish to talk about any of the artists I have mentioned, you can email me at yay4coke@yahoo.com. If there's anything you think I should mention about anyone here, like if they've been signed or something, let me know. Let us join together in spreading the love.

And here they are, in alphabetical order. Clicking on their names will take you to their official sites:

Cindy Alexander
Cindy is a singer-songwriter from LA who has two albums out: See Red and Smash. Both are available for only $10 through cdbaby.com and amazon.com. I recommend them if you like uncommonly strong yet personable female vocals and songs that you'll want to sing along to. And aside from being a hard-working and talented musician with a great voice who writes catchy yet intelligent songs, she's a darn cool person. You can download many of her songs on her mp3.com page, here.

Stephanie Dosen
Stephanie's my most recent find on this page. She's an acoustic folk/pop singer-songwriter from Wisconsin, and her music is understated and sweet. I usually don't go for the really soft acoustic stuff, but there's something wonderful about her music and it makes me strangely happy. You can listen to a couple songs of hers on the "songs" page of her site and a couple more in her "live beehive" section; click on the "live music" link and it has a couple album tracks there. You can buy her album ghosts, mice & vagabonds and listen to some clips at cdbaby here.

Hem
I found out about Hem in 2001, when Audiogalaxy was still alive and well and hosting a bunch of artists legally as well as illegally. Hem was a band that wanted their mp3s to be downloaded through AG, and download I did. I immediately loved their song "Half Acre" and bought their album, Rabbit Songs, before it was released nationally. It's truly great.. very old-fashioned sounding and rather country, but with no twangy vocals. I put up their lyrics on my obscure lyrics page a while ago, so I already recommended them, but here I am doing it again. They are currently signed to Dreamworks and you can probably buy their album at many large CD stores, but there's always Amazon.com. There are some mp3s on their official site.

Megan Slankard
I found out about Megan when I was browsing CDbaby's best selling artists last year, and I immediately fell in love with her voice and songs after listening to the clips they have up and bought her CD Freaky Little Story. At 21, she's the youngest one I have up here, though you'd never know it listening to her songs or her singing. One of her songs from her first album, Lady is a Pirate, was a finalist in the Pantene Pro-Voice competition last year (she was the only one I liked, and at the time I'd never heard of her), and she was recently the "victim" on TLC's What Not To Wear. She's making a name for herself in the oddest of ways, and it's fun watching her career develop.

Sarah Slean
Sarah is a Canadian singer-songwriter who plays piano and has a distinctively raspy yet appealing voice. I got to see her before she was signed, when she played at my little college with just her piano. I had my picture taken with her; it was cool. She's since signed with Atlantic and released a terrific major-label debut (produced by Hawksley Workman) that Atlantic has inexplicably chosen not to release in America. Consequently, you cannot order her CD through Amazon.com, but you can buy it from mymusic.com. You can listen to her single "Sweet Ones" by entering her site with your volume up. It plays automatically.

Kristy Thirsk
Anyone who knows me knows that Kristy is my favorite singer ever. I put up a Kristy Thirsk appreciation page a few months ago, but it seems to have vanished. Anyway, she has an amazing voice and has been involved with various projects since the mid-90s, including Rose Chronicles, Delerium, Front Line Assembly, and Balligomingo. She has just gotten around to putting out a lovely solo album, which you can now order online for only about $9 (or $12 Canadian) here. She toured with Delerium in September, and I saw her in Toronto. It was wonderful. Enjoy!

Trespassers William
This is a band from California that is fronted by singer-songwriter Anna-Lynne Williams. I found out about them through Amazon.com's "people who bought this also bought" thing a few years ago, after which I bought their debut Anchor, and I recently purchased their second album, Different Stars. Both are wonderful and feature some of my favorite melodies in my entire CD collection (along with Radiohead's OK Computer). The songs are mostly melancholy, especially on the latter album, and perfect if you want to wallow in beautiful sadness. They also had a song on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which makes them cooler- as if that were even possible. You can listen to a lot of their song clips and purchase (for only $10!) at cdbaby.com.

Within Temptation
This is a female-fronted gothish-metal band from The Netherlands. Their third CD, Mother Earth, is another that features some of my favorite vocal melodies of all time, especially in the songs "Ice Queen," "Dark Wings," and "Mother Earth" (which you can watch the full-length video of on their site). The singer, Sharon den Adel, has a pure, high voice, which she uses to its full potential on these recordings. The production can be a little funny at times, but if you like your female vocals to soar, this is a band for you to check out. Unfortunately, even though they have distribution in Europe, they have none in the United States - which means high import prices if you want to buy it here, and you probably won't find it in stores. If you don't know anyone in Europe and don't want to pay over $30 for their CDs, I recommend eBay.

Hawksley Workman
It is unfortunate that Hawksley's last name begins with a W, putting him last on this page. You have probably noticed that I'm not into a whole lot of male musical artists, so that must mean there's something about Hawksley that separates him from the bunch. I don't know exactly what that is, but after seeing him live, I have come to the conclusion that he escaped from a circus. He is a freakishly talented musician, in his performing, production, songwriting, whatever. And I talked to him after the performance and got my picture taken with him, which, like Trespassers William, made him even more impossibly cool than he was before. He is another who, quite unfortunately, does not have distribution in America; whoever isn't signing him here is dumb unless he doesn't want to be signed here. But it's easy enough to get his CDs for only about $13US from MapleMusic.com. I recommend starting with (Last Night We Were) The Delicious Wolves.

Click here for my philosophy on music downloading.