Track Marks: How Andrew Bird Became This Week’s Biggest Artist In The World

Welcome to another edition of Track Marks, in which your Idolators perform an autopsy on the latest band burning up the MP3-blogger charts.

Artist: Andrew Bird Hometown: Chicago Album: Armchair Apocrypha, due March 30 First blog mention: Since this 33-year-old singer-songwriter has been around for years, you’d need a far-reaching archive to find his first blog burst. So instead let’s just guess that during a 6/12/98 Prodigy message-board post, someone mentioned his old band, Andrew Bird’s Bowl Of Fire. The Build-Up: Last fall, a string of Bird posts appeared on sites such as Both Sides Of The Mouth, Under the Rotunda, and Lost In Your Inbox. The Dam-Break: After Apocrypha leaked in full last week, Bird shot near the top of the elbo.ws “Hot Artists” chart, while his “Heretics” single has been steadily climbing the popular-tracks lists on both elbo.ws and the Hype Machine. And just about all of the big sites–including Stereogum, I Guess I’m Floating, and Gorilla vs. Bear–have gone ga-ga over him. Odds of Backlash: 6-1. They love him now, but what will they think when one of his songs winds up on the Weeds season premiere? Is He Worthy?: Yep. Armchair will no doubt be the background music for many a tasteful yup-rock get-together, but it’s start-to-finish lovely, and features some of the best whistling solos since that Peter, Bjorn and John album.

Andrew Bird – Heretics [MP3, link expired] Andrew Bird [MySpace]