MUSICIAN
JAMIE STEWART
With his dark, dissonant songs, Jamie Stewart will probably never crack the Top 40. Not that it bothers the bisexual Xiu Xiu front man. "I don't give a fuck what people say or what people think," he told Out early this year, just after the San Francisco Bay–area quartet released their highly praised album Women as Lovers—an art-noise fender-bender the songwriter calls their most hopeful record yet. Though he often factors sexuality into this material, Stewart insists the group's mission is simply to convey raw, unmitigated emotion: "I don't really consider Xiu Xiu a queer band. I consider Xiu Xiu a band that tries to talk about things—real things—that happen, in an unashamed way, even if shame is part of it."