Music

For the last decade, Brighton-based one-man mashup artist The Kleptones has helped define remix culture. Fusing pop culture soundbites with hip-hop and rock, his A Night at the Hip-Hopera is widely regarded as one of the best mashup albums ever made.

To keep in touch with friends back home, Julia Nunes started posting ukulele songs from her dorm room on YouTube to stay in touch with her friends. Five years later, she has over 50 million video views, nearly 200,000 subscribers, and a legion of dedicated fans, who helped her independently self-publish four albums.

In 2000, MC Frontalot released the song "Nerdcore Hiphop", instantly naming the budding genre of rap about traditionally geeky subjects. On his last five albums, Front's covered everything from Dungeons & Dragons, text adventure games, 0-day exploits, and annoying bloggers.

Indietronica duo The Limousines self-released their first album in 2010, scraping the money to make a big budget music video for $500, attracting MTV plays and a million YouTube views. After a bad experience with their label, they decided to go completely independent, using Kickstarter to fund their new album, hitting their goal this week.