mixtape maestro (2.0)

Slapping together electro-metal fuzz, diva R&B and old-school B-boy spunk, L.A.’s Bedtime For Toys (named one of Rolling Stone’s “25 Best Bands on MySpace” a while back), represent another one of those “kitchen sink”-hybrid acts that somehow manage to escape sounding as horrible as they might seem on paper. They’ve been dubbed the hipster version of Black Eyed Peas, a fitting tag based on their ability to create guilty pleasure pop patchworks you want to hate but can’t necessarily prevent from slinking their way into your skull, and having an appealing frontwoman in singer Marchelle Bradanini.

Check out their MySpace and you’ll become enamored with tunes like “Mona Lisa Pt. 2″ (a cautionary tale about stardom-seeking L.A. newbies with a heavy rock/ rap crunch and “Genius of Love” melody theft) or “Cold Fever” (which makes a collaboration between Gwen Stefani and Korn seem somewhat plausible). A R&B covers EP, BfT iz Punk n’ B (featuring radical reinventions of Earth Wind & Fire’s “September” and Bobby Brown’s “Don’t Be Cruel”), meanwhile, feels like a promising must-have.

Here’s the video for “Cold Fever”, the first single from Bedtime For Toys upcoming EP, Appetite For Corruption:

Listen to their cover of Bobby Brown’s “Don’t Be Cruel”:

DL: “Don’t Be Cruel (Bobby Brown Cover)” (YFH)