By "girlie" I  mean "groups with a female vocalist." I know that some of my "metal" friends will probably knock this post, so I will follow this up with an entry titled "Bands That You Probably Think Are Death Metal But Really Aren't." That should be entertaining.

1. Be Your Own Pet (http://www.beyourownpet.net/)

This band announced their last show about a week after I found out about them. High energy punk rock from Nashville, they sing songs about Zombies and cutting people. The girl has a good voice and is kind of cute. The music goes beyond basic power chords. Let's hope some of them re-form in another group, poppy punk is rarely this good.

2. The Long Blondes (http://www.thelongblondes.co.uk/)

I got a Facebook update today that this band is breaking up because the guitarist had a stroke. That sucks, since this is a pretty good indie-rock band from the UK. They have a unique sound, plus none of the three girls in the group are long blondes themselves, which gives them some ironic street cred.

3. Baxter ( http://tr.im/iqe)

If you've ever listened to any Portishead album or massive Attack's "Mezzanine", you'll like this. An obscure release fro 1998 (on Madonna's Maverick label), nobody seems to have heard of this album. I think I found it searching through Amazon's recommendations back in the day. Anyway, this might be more depressing than Portishead which may explain why this group didn't last more than 1 album. But the first song "Television" is about breaking your couch potato friend's TV and making them go outside. :)

4. The Bird & The Bee (http://www.thebirdandthebee.com/)

Finally, a group that's not broken up or defunct. These two are actually still making music! I like to think of The Bird & The Bee as a lighter version of Lamb (which is a lighter, not so depressing version of Portishead.) Most of their songs are very good, and the video for "Polite Dance Song" is great. They look so uninterested in it, plus there's old people break dancing....you can't beat that. They get extra points for covering the song "Tonight You Belong to Me" from the Steve Martin movie "The Jerk."

5. Metric (http://www.ilovemetric.com/)

Ok, even if you're one of those "I'm not really a music person" people, you'll probably like this band. My dad, who's 75, is totally into this band. Part of the Broken Social Scene group of bands, in my opinion BSS doesn't touch anything that Metric does. With lyrics like "Buy this car to drive to work, drive to work to pay for this car," you can't really go wrong with this band.  They are almost a little too good, esp. on songs like "Empty" and "The List." Highly recommended.