Amateur musicians' one hope for success used to be pouring their heart and soul into crappy handmade demos, only to have them buried in the mail rooms of the Big Four. The Internet has given those musicians a new hope and, recently, the lucky ones have found adoring fans, blog love, eager labels, and world wide tours. Music piracy might be bleeding the record industry dry, but amateur musicianship is thriving more than ever. The RIAA claims that illegal downloading will result in the end of music as we know it, and they're probably right. But music as we know it, featuring dinosaur bands on endless reunion tours, Mouseketeer assembly line acts, and eccentric diva artists eating up studio time, has plenty of problems beyond piracy. Thankfully, new sounds and styles are being put down on four tracks and lap tops in bedrooms across the country, and these artists are showing us that the new paradigm is actually pretty awesome.

Neon Indian

The poster child for blog based success, Neon Indian's Alan Paloma worked hard in similar electronic acts Ghosthustler and VEGA for years without achieving the overnight acclaim thrust upon his Neon Indian project. Proof that nothing builds buzz faster than a good mystery, Neon Indian's initial interest was sparked by the fact the no one knew who they were. A couple of hazy, retro-grade pop songs flitted onto the blogs, with little information other than the fact that they were produced by a duo working long distance and they would eventually be accompanied by video art. By the time the album officially dropped, everyone knew the story of Alan Paloma, his missed psychedelic experience, and the little bedroom album that could. In the time it takes most bands to record an EP, Neon Indian had gone from bedroom to full band and toured across the US and Europe, backing up the sluggish appeal of Psychic Chasms with a fantastic live set.

Ariel Pink

Bridging the gap between old fashioned four track recording and present day lo-fi fetishism, eccentric L.A. homebody Ariel Rosenburg (aka Ariel Pink) has been self recording cassette tapes since at least 1996. Like his hero/mentor R. Stevie Moore, Pink's output is prodigious, uneven, and often wonderful. After Ariel Pink passed one of his CD-Rs on to a member of Animal Collective, he became the first non-Collective artist to put out a record on the band's newly founded Paw Tracks imprint. Though at times it sounds like it was recorded in a garbage can underwater, beneath Pink's bizarre indulgences (like using mouth sounds for drums) lie a hoard of pop archivist treasures. When Ariel Pink's newly found fan base started clamoring for some live shows, Pink obliged and proved that, unfortunately, not all bedroom acts can segue successfully to the stage.

Wavves

Another unabashed homebody, Wavves' Nathan Williams sent off his Macbook recorded demo to the right people in 2008 and suddenly found himself in the fast lane of Indie Superstardom. Wavves' first two records are quintessential late oughts lo-fi with piles of static and speaker bending distortion laid over some catchy surf rock jams. A quick one-two release of his records, followed by nonstop global touring, found Williams hitting his "too much, too soon" limit and melting down onstage at Spain's Primavera Festival. The blogs that had given him the initial boost were quick to turn their backs just as quickly, declaring Wavves a one trick pony who got too big and burnt out. Williams' "fuck it" attitude seems to have persevered however, and at present Wavves is still touring hard, promoting a yet to be released record with Hella's Zach Hill.

Sunny Day In Glasgow

The UK referencing name and cascading waves of shoegazer sound would have you believe this band came from across the pond, but in fact Sunny Day in Glasgow hails from a bedroom in Philadelphia. When Ben Daniels' solo recording project started to morph into something more interesting, he recruited his twin sisters to supply vocals to the semi-lucid sound collages he was creating. The resulting Scribble Mural Comic Journal was mailed off to a couple college radio stations, and to Daniels' surprise, started receiving substantial air play. By the time his assembled touring act finished playing Europe (apparently Europe has a big import market for American bedroom bands) his sisters were ready to leave the group and the band was basically down to just Daniels again. Undeterred, Daniels recruited some new members and expanded beyond the bedroom, recording the sophomore record Ashes Grammar in a empty dance studio in order to play with the unusual acoustics of a room bigger than a bed.

Beirut

When most college students take time off to travel abroad, they return home and do little more with their "profound life changing experience" than bring it up constantly to the annoyance of their friends. Sante Fe high school dropout Zach Condon fell in love with Balkan folk music while traveling Europe, but instead of making it his senior project, he channeled his exploration of world music into the bedroom band Beirut. A multi-instrumentalist, Condon plays a veritable smorgasbord of unusual instruments on Beirut's debut Gulag Orkestrar. Though home recording and the Internet make life a lot easier for amateur musicians, it never hurts to have a friend in the biz. Fellow New Mexican Jeremy Barnes (formerly of Neutral Milk Hotel, now of A Hawk and a Hacksaw) collaborated with Condon on the Gulag Orkestrar, and was more than happy to pass along the finished product to his friends at Ba Da Bing! records. In three short years, Condon's Beirut went from bedroom to The Late Show with David Letterman.