Brendan Benson

Brendan Benson had a devoted following of his own for years before he ever strapped on a guitar to play with Jack White and Co. in The Raconteurs. The Michigan-born songwriter had been weaving his own practiced power-pop since the mid-’90s, and while his second solo album, Lapalco, tends to get more attention, 2005’s The Alternative To Love is arguably stronger—all of his songwriting quirks somehow click to produce a catchy, genre-hopping masterwork. Then, White and his first supergroup intervened, and the only outlet for Benson’s solo material was his MySpace—until 2009, which saw the release of My Old, Familiar Friend. Now, Benson’s started his own label, Readymade Records, which recently released his fifth album, What Kind Of World.

Updated 06/21/2012