Best National New Act

Macy Gray

Parts of her absurdly hyped On How Life Is (Epic) felt like a party where the hostess is perhaps over-eager to ensure your good time, and the album suffered a little from the spectacle of guys who once played with Sheryl Crow deploying all-purpose "tasty licks"-- there's so much funk in Macy's singing (along with a vocal resemblance to Will from Imperial Teen) that she could probably have made a not-bad record just human-beat-boxing her own accompaniment. Which I guess is the point: the prospect of someone (maybe even Fatboy Slim, whom she's lately been recording with) giving Macy a musical setting she can dig into with both heels is a cool one, but it was actually pretty exciting to hear her bust out of the L7s she was stuck with. As it stands, the breakdown in "Caligula" is actually pretty darn tight. (Any DJs tried mixing this into Beck's "Jockin' My Mercedes"?)

-- Daniel Stuckey