Welcome to You Gotta Know, the former flagship feature of Musiqtone and we hope it will once become a flagship feature again, but this time as the vehicle that drives our indie coverage, the one half of what makes Musiqtone tick. Never has a music site has gone this long covering both sides of the music spectrum and You Gotta Know highlights the side of music where it begins with hopes and dreams of hitting it big someday, to be seen by people, and ultimately the music fan owning a piece of their music.

What is You Gotta Know? It's a feature where we showcase the best and the brightest that indie and underground music has to offer and putting them on a stage shared by some of music's biggest stars. Some of the You Gotta Knows that have gone to bigger and better things after being featured include Curtis Peoples, Lydia Gray, Amanda Shelly, Mo Costin, Kristin Hoffmann, and Michael Celedon. When we found them, they all had one thing in common, a dream, a hope. And You Gotta Know gives fuel to the hopes and dreams and get it realized. Sure, we may be one step towards their ultimate goal, whatever that might be, but we'd like to think that You Gotta Know is one big step towards their dream of being a successful musician.

But You Gotta Know isn't just about that, sometimes it's finding those hidden gems in music, the ones who get overlooked by even the mid-major labels and indie giants. To put it simply, You Gotta Know is vehicle for artists we find that want more than what they have, to strive for success, and to put their music to the ten of thousands of people that come here to Musiqtone.

To begin the 2008 season of You Gotta Know, we span the entire country as we settle in both Southern California and New York and unearth two acts, one solo, one band that should be signed to labels right now.

This band should never be called a boy band even if their lead vocal sounds like a dead-on imitation of Justin Timberlake. Sure, this band can spin the same sweet harmonies but they can rock it out as well. And as for the solo act, grrl solo power hasn't sounded this sweet in years.

This is why SoCal's Ariel Lee and New York's Honor Society kick of 2008 in a big way as the year's first You Gotta Knows.

Click here to see Honor Society
Click here to see Ariel Lee