Jem

Not the one with The Holograms, this is a new one. Not saying that a new Jem and The Holograms album wouldn’t be amazingly fucking awesome, but with today’s music market, they’d probably have Miley Cyrus as Jem and then I would have to stab my eyes out. Yeah, this one’s cooler than any other Jem that could possibly happen in this day and age. But I digress…The Welsh-born vocalist has been making waves since 2002, but she’s another one who’s slipped under my radar (and another good recommendation from Pandora).

Jem combines rock, new wave, electronica and trip-hop, and indie into a great blend and two albums, Finally Woken and Down to Earth. She’s written for Madonna, worked with Mos Def and Talib Kweli, and she’s another one of these artists that you find in every little nook and cranny of television and film including Sex and the City, Eragon, Damages, The O.C., Desperate Housewives, Wonderfalls, 90210, Six Feet Under, Crossing Jordan, Grey’s Anatomy, and Medium.

ometimes Jem rocks it hard and sometimes she just misses the mark. Like my husband said yesterday, “She’s not bad, but there’s so many people who do it…better”. He’s right. There’s some super awesome tracks on these though, and she’s still relatively new! Give her some time and I think she might be a force to reckon with in the slowly declining world of trip-hop.

Some of the better tracks to check out include “Crazy” and “Always Knew” from Finally Woken and “They” and “Come On Closer” from Down to Earth. She has a new album due out sometime this year and I’m pretty pumped. She’s got a long way to go, but miles of open road ahead. Check her out over on her Myspace.