Paolo Nutini

Paolo Nutini's star has risen so fast in the last year that one wonders what industry-media-street-team conspiracy the kid has on the payroll. Even if Atlantic Records thinks it's found the Scottish James Blunt, Nutini doesn't need much more than a piano or an acoustic guitar to turn the cruelest skeptic into his 158,176th MySpace friend. His soul delivery is less Van Morrison than blue-eyed Bob Marley, and his best single, "Rewind," chronicles a young barfly's reveries over a bedroom folk groove — if that bedroom looks out over a city illuminated by 1,000 radios playing "Caravan." If he ever pulls together a full album that catchy and calmly expansive — These Streets isn't quite it — he'll be a worldwide threat.