(All photos: credit, Cody Smyth)

It’d be easy to say that just because Seattle band the Myriad is this week’s Artist of the Week simply because they won the MTV2 2007 Dew Circuit Breakout competition. It’d be easy, but it’d also be wrong. Their talent, which they’ve been honing as a band since 2002, is what edged out 4,000 hopefuls and earned them the #1 spot in the contest, which searches to find the best breakout bands and acts, like DCB alum Taking Back Sunday, Yellowcard and Hawthorne Heights. That talent, plus their ability to attract and connect with fans via their moody, effortlessly melodic, atmospheric rock is also what nabbed them a spot as MTV’s Artist of the Week.

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Not since that paisley purple funk-filled egg cracked open to reveal Prince has Minneapolis produced such crucial musicians. Indie hip-hop duo Atmosphere — made up of MC Slug and producer Ant, primarily — has been cranking out conscious-raising, metaphor-laced sagas in album form for close to 15 years. Overcast!, their first official album as Atmosphere, debuted in 1997. On fan favorite Lucy Ford, Slug introduced ongoing recurring character “Lucy,” a lyrical metaphor for wack chicks and relationship woes. The complex, introspective God Loves Ugly reinforced the duo’s willingness to both spit some tough game and walk home with their proverbial tale between their legs, two themes explored further on the female-trouble-oriented Seven’s Travels. After 2005’s You Can’t Imagine How Much Fun We’re Having was met with mixed reviews, Atmosphere returned last month to drop the brilliantly named When Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint That S*** Gold, which entered The Billboard 200 at #5 — a career-high for the duo and their Rhymesayers label.

The album is as complex as anything Slug and Ant have dreamed up in the past. The mix is lush, the guests include a beatboxing Tom Waits and TV On The Radio’s Tunde Adebimpe, and (our favorite part) the deluxe edition boasts a hardcover, a bonus DVD (Sad Clown Bad Dub 13) and a Slug-penned children’s story across it’s 36 pages. Awesome!

Let’s just say we love it, which is why we tapped Slug and Ant to set up shop — in this case, a hip-hop lemonade stand — all this week on MTV.

Moreover, you can dig into plenty of Atmosphere on MTV.com. Like the music videos for Lemons‘ “Guarantees” and “Shoulda Known,” among others, photos from the MTV shoot, and clips from MTV2’s Subterranean. And don’t miss the interview Slug gave MTV’s Sucker Free blog.

It gets even better. Take your adoration for Atmosphere worldwide web-style with Tag It on the duo’s Paint That S*** Gold web site. Use the virtual spraypaint to make your mark anywhere and submit it to the gallery. Just don’t deface Buzzworthy, k? Thanks.

While you’re here, watch “Guarantees” and their Artist of the Week videos here:

(All photos, credit: Cody Smyth)

Gnarls Barkley say they’re from Atlanta. But we wouldn’t be surprised if the real story involved a flying saucer — like in Close Encounters of the Third Kind — landing somewhere in the Greater Atlanta area. Or maybe it was St. Elsewhere. Only instead of those creepy tones spilling forth from the mothership, the spooked-out sound of Cee-Lo Green’s freaky-deaky, omnipresent Buddha laugh rang out over silent partner Danger Mouse’s brilliantly produced hypnotic beats, blips and samples. Together both sounds lifted us off our feet and haunted us like an out-of-body experience — at least that’s how it felt the first time we heard “Crazy,” which hooked us like crack.

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In a celebrity-obsessed age of product placement and plastic pop stars, Gossip are arguably the realest band in rock ‘n roll. Led by the Arkansas-born Beth Ditto, an often naked, unapologetically overweight outspoken feminist named NME’s coolest person in rock, Gossip have been breaking boundaries with their fiery soul-punk since 1999. Not because they’re bleeding heart activists (although they do wear their politics on their sleeves) or out to shock people, but because they just are who they are — not out to please anybody or make a million fans — totally real. As guitarist Brace Paine, original drummer Kathy Mendonca (now replaced by Hannah Blilie) and Beth put it, way back in the beginning, “We started a band ’cause we were bored. Our mission is to make you dance, and if you’re not gonna dance, just stay at home and listen to the oldies station.”

Let’s get back to Beth a minute because she deserves way more than one run-on sentence. One of the music world’s fiercest individuals, the powerhouse has appeared nude on several magazine covers under unflaggingly punk circumstances. In interviews she has admitted everything from a distaste for deodorant to having eaten squirrels (although she later claimed it was her cousin who ate the critters). But she’s not all outrage all the time. What her philosophy really comes down to may have been revealed in her regular Guardian column, “What Would Beth Ditto Do,” where she said, “Women aren’t cats, we aren’t pets, we are just people trying to cross the freaking street to get an ice-cream.”

Although obviously not your average spotlight stealers, Gossip have more than earned their infamy. Formed in Arkansas back in ‘99, they relocated to Olympia, Washington where they signed with Calvin Johnson’s legendary indie label, K Records. Their big break came six years later by way of third full-length, Standing In The Way Of Control. The title track, an all-out anthem, quickly hit #1 on the UK charts and became the unofficial theme song of British teen melodrama, Skins. This was a particularly major breakthrough because the song was written as an angry response to the US government’s refusal to allow gays the right to marry. Again, not your average spotlight stealers.

Since then the band has been signed to a division of Sony Records where they’re in the midst of work on a major label debut. They also closed the Glastonbury Festival and spent last summer touring North America as part of the True Colors Tour 2007, a star-studded event thrown to raise money for the Human Rights Campaign. For that reason and so many more, the fearless trailblazers are taking over MTV for the week. Watch as they go back to high school to play a totally punk prom and talk some frank trash about growing up weird. Warm up with the samples below and catch the full show here. ALSO: Be the first to see Gossip’s exclusive MTV photo shoot.

(All photos, credit: Danika Singfield)

Even back in the early ‘90s, when she was just a curly-haired Long Island girl in cut-offs and a hoodie, Mariah Carey — the youngest daughter of a struggling, middle-class broken home — was that chick, destined for a luxe life of Louis Vuitton luggage and Louboutin heels. That larger-than-life voice soared out of our Sony Sports Walkman (remember the banana-yellow ones?) like a supernatural force, and nearly two decades, five Grammys, 11 studio albums, and 18 #1 singles later, that chick’s still rocking iPods and MTV.

With that logic-defying range that glides from whisper-soft-sexy-sweet to match-in-a-gas-tank explosive, Mariah went Unplugged, got animated for Christmas, and took down a cheating Jerry O’Connell at a matinee. She went undercover on a Jet Ski, fled her symbolic wedding, cruised Paris with Pharrell, and lived out a computer geek’s fantasy with a unicorn at her side. She debuted more #1 singles than any other artist in chart history, and she spent more time on the charts and broke and sold more records than half her peers combined.

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(All photos, credit: Bryan Hainer)

You’ll either be incensed or elated that Panic At the Disco is this week’s MTV Artist of the Week. Or you might not even recognize them — the band that used to sound like nervous teenagers trapped in a fun house with a few synthesizers, some Ringling Brothers costumes, and a severe anxiety disorder dropped the extraneous punctuation, stopped writing songs with titles that could double as character-count-maxing Twitter updates, and completely revamped their sound.

Three years and several personal triumphs and tragedies (the death of Ryan Ross’ father, the replacement of Brent Wilson with Jon Walker and the ensuing fallout, scores of sold-out shows, a Grammy nomination) after selling more than two million copies of their debut album, A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out, Panic is now all grown up. And, for a band that’s taken a lot of s— from knee-jerk anti-emo reactionaries, they appear more determined than ever to keep on the sunny side.

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Last week, Artist of the Week ventured into international waters with French femme fatale Yelle. So this week, in keeping the Euro theme, we’re stepping out of the States and focusing on another foreign artist.
Enter Paddy Casey. He’s the biggest singer-songwriter you’ve probably never heard of but probably aren’t going to stop hearing about any time soon.

The thought-provoking Irish troubadour started out busking on the streets of Dublin and Galway and was ultimately discovered at a bar gig when he was still just in his teens. He went on to release three full-length albums, each culling from his boundless music tastes — from ’60s funk and soul to Bob Marley to Bob Dylan, to whom he’s frequently (and not lightly) compared — and each gaining him more and more attention in Ireland.

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Yelle (the last “e” is silent) is not just another hipster chick in leg warmers and lamé (even though she’s partial both). The French electro hip-pop tart’s got the blogosphere appropriately atwitter over her spazzy live performances, aerobics-inspired videos and intentionally low-budget (think cable-access) ’80s steez, despite the fact that she hasn’t even released an album in the States yet.

When, like us, you don’t speak French, Yelle — think Lily Allen’s snark meets M.I.A.’s wardrobe meets Nelly Furtado’s flirt factor — who’s got the makings of a modern-day European Blondie, sounds like she’s just engaging in universal boy-issue lament set to hyper computerized blips and beeps and Casio beats.

But beneath the retro patina and language barrier lay raunchy, NC-17 lyrics about matters of… “size,” (zut alors!), sex toys, and girl-on-girl action, coated with a sweet gloss of poppy saccharine.

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Flo Rida is, unsurprisingly, from the state denoted by closing the space between the rapper’s two-part stage name. Or, you could just refer to the enormous postcard pictorial he has inked across his hulking back.

But don’t let his bulked-up, tatted and often-shirtless appearance or innuendo-laced lyrics fool you into thinking he’s a straight thug or strictly into dropping booty beats. The guy is essentially a big teddy bear — albeit an obscenely ripped teddy bear of Dr. Dre-like proportions. And he just wants to make a little something for everyone.

“On this album I talk about the happiest of times to the sad times, to the lovable times. You know those times when you just loving your girl, and you know, past relationships, and it’s basically just an everyday life album,” he told illroots.com of his mainstream debut. “I try to put something on there where it’s like the best party you ever had or the worst time you ever had, so you might want to grab a tissue.”

But aside from his one-name wordplay, Flo Rida, born Tramar Dillard, doesn’t need gimmicks — he’s already got clubs, cars and cellphones bumping with his infectious hip-hop tracks — “Low,” featuring T-Pain, was one of the most-downloaded iTunes tracks of 2007, and shot to #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts, with the Timbaland-backed “Elevator” rising quickly behind. And now he’s following up his radio-ready singles with en entire album of them.

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In their Artist of the Week clips, OneRepublic throw caution — and their serious image — to the wind and have fun with some of the Spinal Tap-type moments they’ve experienced. Although … we’re not really sure if any of them ever had to carry a sword or wear a dress. Hoping to separate fact from fiction, we caught up with the guys while they were in NYC recently to talk about their music, being out of their element and how they’re planning to take over the world. Here’s what they had to say…

Buzzworthy: As our Artist of the Week, why did you decide to show your humorous side?

Ryan Tedder: Our videos are kind of serious. Our music is on the serious side. Part of our whole mission is trying to bring back music that says something. Between the two videos we have out, some people might think we’re this brooding, depressing band. But that’s not the case. We wanted to show people that there’s a whole other side to us. We actually don’t take ourselves seriously.

BW: How did you come up with the theme?

RT: We find absurd humor to be the funniest. The British version of The Office is our favorite show. We love the Farrelly brothers and Will Ferrell. So where all those converge is where our humor is and what we think is funny. We’re into funny, awkward moments, so we wanted to incorporate that. The idea for shooting at Medieval Times came from the movie The Cable Guy, which we all love. We were all just like, “Hell yeah, we have to do it there.”

Drew Brown: It was one of the biggest productions we’ve ever done.

RT: Bigger than our music videos.

DB: It looks like a movie.

RT: Or a Mexican soap opera. Read more…