Not fair, Lilith: lead singer Florence Welsh has got some thundering pipes. Supported by backing band the Machine, Welsh’s huge voice dominates every moment of this debut and firmly establishes her as a major player among modern U.K. chanteuses.

The title of stylish Parisian duo Air’s sixth album proves typically inscrutable: while there is no “Love 1,” the Goth prog recorded here does sound like a sequel to their 2000 soundtrack for The Virgin Suicides.

Evan Rachel Wood doesn’t fear the edge—it’s her natural habitat, onscreen and in real life. Uncomfortable, Lolita-esque situations? Check. Nudity? Check. Drugs? Um… Bisexuality? Naturally. “I love me some girls, man!” Wood states unequivocally, sidling into a back booth at a sleek pan-Asian bistro near her home on Los Angeles’ West Side.

“I want his fucking ass! I want your fucking ass!” These imperative, pornographic commands from “April,” a characteristically maverick song off A Woman A Man Walked By, the anticipated new collaborative album by PJ Harvey and John Parish, evoke nothing so much as Marlon Brando’s improvised dialogue in Last Tango in Paris as rendered by the Jesus Lizard. Hurtling out of the speakers, Harvey’s uncanny, decidedly masculine bark relays the aggression and growling timbre of a sexual thug.

It’s not flashbulbs but strobe lights that this paparazzo is surrounded by. Meet Cesar Rios, aka DJ Paparazzi, the recently appointed pied piper of Los Angeles’ vibrant electro dance scene. “L.A. is pretty much the new Paris,” says Rios, a popular DJ/ promoter for whom the City of Angels has become the new epicenter of dance music trends (much like the City of Lights spawned iconic electronic duos Justice and Daft Punk).

Liquid lunches have overtaken the power variety as the go-to for Hollywood types on the go. As such, Randy Randall, one-half of the Los Angeles-based DIY buzz band No Age, quenches his thirst with cocktails from unforgettable silver-screen classics. Roll credits, please.

“I adore film noir style,” says actress Emily Blunt, shown here in the role of Dorothy Vallens, the tragic femme fatale in cult auteur David Lynch’s 1986 opus Blue Velvet. The kinkfest classic turned Isabella Rossellini into an icon, while pushing noir convention into the shadows of dangerously surreal Americana. “Blue Velvet is so dark and ethereal,” says Blunt. “It’s brooding yet artistic—I love it.”

When Clémence Poésy speaks in English, every sentence seems to end with a question mark. This quirk captures the essence of this French actor’s growing allure, both as a film star and a nascent fashion icon -- there’s a mystery to her, an ethereal charisma that has positioned Poésy to break out as a global star. “I’ve always cherished that thing, of being able to travel between two different cultures,” she says. “Melting into different universes in different countries makes it more interesting.” See full fashion gallery.

Pop tarts with smarts? Impossible! Electro-powerhouse group Dragonette takes the stage to prove Britney wrong.

When it comes to combining sexual swagger and pop-art smarts, the only competition Martina Sorbara seems to have is an early crucifix-sporting, lingerie-flashing Madonna. Sorbara is the post-post-modern siren fronting Dragonette, the irresistibly naughty electro-rock band she founded with husband/bassist Dan Kurtz. And when it comes to her ironic-erotic charisma, the title of the Canadian quartet’s debut album, Galore, proves truth in advertising. “A lot of people just see a sex vixen,” she says of the reaction to Galore’s debauched diva tales. “That misses the point -- I’m more feminist than prostitute. I like to be sexy, but on my terms.”

Stella Baxter is a ball buster, but sly about the way she does it. In slinky linen cocktail dresses and four-inch Jimmy Choos, she combines sex appeal and smarts; she’ll two-time and double-cross anyone to get what she wants (and maybe a little more). She’s far shrewder than the underworld characters she beds and empties of cash, and as elusive as the smoke from her omnipresent cigarette. Femme fatales don’t get much more freaky-deaky than this. Guy Ritchie, the man who first imagined Stella Baxter, contends, “she’s a bit fuckin’ rock and roll.”