As a New Year in a new decade dawns before our still-rheumy red eyes (how many days can a hangover last? Why did we all think those last five drinks last Thursday were a good idea?), let’s Flashion Backward through ye old UI archives to see what the boys and girls were saying, playing and wearing in yesteryear.

Lucy’s most notable commercial success was her 2003 hit “Dumb Girls,” but just as she was gathering steam, Atlantic Records pulled a corporate fast one, merged a bunch of shizzle and showed a roster of promising artists to their gleaming door–including Lucy.

No matter. She grew up singing in jazz cafes around New York for tips and/or a meal, so she probably was never particularly interested in following the typical “crank out a few chart-toppers; get seen at all the right nightclubs in NY/LA; date a bunch of douches; have a sex tape leaked online; suffer a breakdown; enter rehab for drug addiction; emerge and start talking about healing to Life & Style magazine/launch a perfume line” career path most aspiring songstresses stick to these days.

Lucy’s style is decidedly more ephemeral and simultaneously grounded. She sounds like her vocal cords have been sprinkled in lavender fairy dust. She looks like a sophisticated version of what Miley Cyrus’ publicist totes hopes she’ll look like in five years, but she acts like that enigmatic, super-smart, sweet sprite you knew in high school who is just as likely to go for “foreign affairs” as she is to run out and help build an Ashram in Goa, India.

But her kaleidoscope style, music and lifestyle are all part of her charm, right? She’s the CBGB-loving punk next door, the sextress who may or may not bite and the jaw-droppingly pretty smartass who’s always two steps ahead of you.

Below, check out Lucy’s perspective on traveling through passion-infused South America; the importance of holding onto your drunk-ass dance pants for two seconds on occasion; and of course, the joys of salsa-ing your way toward dawn.

You are, you’re too fabulous! You’re so fierce it’s nuts, so get on with your Pucci, Fendi and Cardin, Valentino, Armani too and Flashion Backward with me through ye old UI archives to see what the boys and girls were saying, playing and wearing in yesteryear. It’s like stumbling onto a beautifully accoutered time capsule! Today, we’ve discovered reruns from Girl Talk, and man does he how to flash back in style.

Girl Talk is exactly what his music sounds like–all over the map and unpredictable. At one moment searingly painful, almost vicious, the next soaring, joyful, lighter than Forrest Gump’s floating feather but heavier than Gump’s clunker of a metaphor (life does not, in fact, resemble a box of chocolates in any way, shape or form, Forrest.)

GT started making beautiful mashed up music in high school and while The New York Times Magazine stodgily calls his unauthorized samplings a “lawsuit waiting to happen,” Rolling Stone says he’s “utterly virtuosic.” Other critics are equally gobstruck. Girl Talk is “the supreme ’80s-baby pop synthesizer. And while others have attempted to claw up to his lofty position, no one has managed to match his unique mix of diversity, pace, and open-mindedness–not to mention his exquisite ear for snagging the best 15 seconds of every three-minute track blaring from your clock radio.”

Not too shabby. Though with this strange combination of influences, nerdsmanship and the level of engineering know-how necessary to produce such an eccentric yet strangely coherent blend of tonal poetry, one would think GT would resemble some sort of bad sitcom character from the ’80s and 9’0s–a hideous amalgam of Urkel and Alex P. Keaton, perhaps? But no, just like his music, GT busts past your expectations and turns out to be a ruffled, sweaty, dream boat, the rare chick and dude’s dude, a sort of mad, wonderful George Clooney for the post-college, pre-mortgage set.

Girl Talk doesn’t let all of his evident gloriousness get to his perfectly sculpted head, either. Check out his support of ladies who send him supportive undergarments. I couldn’t detect a trace of irony in his assertion that it is not at all creepy, and perhaps even adorable (on a strange level that doesn’t seem to exist in my universe), that some of his female fans choose to send him used underwear. So keep sending him your D-cups–Girl Talk is there for you.

Ahhh, sookie, sookie: Let’s throw this sweet ride into reverse and Flashion Backward through UI’s archives to see what the boys and girls were saying, playing and wearing in yesteryear. It’s like stumbling onto a time capsule! Today, we’ve discovered reruns from the Lonely H, and they flash further back than I ever expected. Get ready for a groovy ride through the 1960s.

The Washington state-based Lonely H got together in high school, and they’ve managed to play more than 250 shows in 47 states–not bad for a bunch of Port Angeles teens who shamelessly “hoist the geek-flag” and blithely cite musical influences as classic rock as The Eagles without batting an eyelash.

And they definitely look the part, sporting ’60s- and’ 70s-era side-parted, behind-the-ear long hairdos that have clearly never encountered the wonders of Frizz Ease. Plus, they top it off with well-worn bell-bottoms, mustaches and vests–and no palpable irony detected! They are so gloriously, unabashedly unconcerned with the sun-glassed, slicked-back, sad-faced boo-hoo urban hipster movement currently sweeping the nation, you can’t help but love them despite their wildly upbeat, innocently grinning selves!

Below, see their slightly less peaches ‘n’ cream take on getting busy with fans, groupies and other  sundry forms of admirers. Oh, boys.

Let’s throw this mamma jamma into reverse and Flashion Backward through UI’s archives to see what the boys and girls were saying, playing and wearing in yesteryear. It’s like stumbling onto a time capsule! Today, we’ve discovered reruns from the imitable Peter Toh.

A “don’t f with me” New Yorker to the core, Toh has been writing and producing music since middle school. That’s right champ–while you were snapping your Bubble Yum and issuing poorly executed drawings of rainbows, butterflies and unicorns in your diary next to embarrassing revelations about your crush on this total tool Ted, Toh was busting out hip-hop albums.

These days, he’s spending more of his time behind the scenes, working on albums for Lil Mama and other up-and-coming rappers. And don’t you forget it!

In fact, why don’t you just go taking a flying you-know-what while you’re at it, you you you…! OK, so chicks who were born in the Midwest should never try to channel Toh. They’ll just end up sounding like their grandmother Rita who was constantly begging the fam to “pardon her French” when she issued scandalous exclamations like “piffles!” while darning socks or trying to find the glasses that were generally safely stowed in her sturdy beehive.

But really–don’t bother this slightly intense (some might even say intimidating-looking) graffiti-lovin’ bad boy because he will cut you. Or at least totally screen your calls. Below, check out Toh’s rant about people who don’t seem to quite get the concept of “catch ya on the flip side.”

Let’s throw this bad boy into reverse and Flashion Backward through UI’s archives to see what the boys and girls were saying, playing and wearing in yesteryear. It’s like stumbling onto a time capsule! Today, we’ve discovered reruns from Telenovela star.

The ladies of TS–the adorably named Hanna, Maggie and Nikkie, aaaaaw–came together through a Craigslist ad in 2004. Apparently, it was love at first sound; the second they sat down to play they knew it was kismet. And yes, their music sounds like they look. The uber-customer for Urban Outfitters/Topshop/Screaming Mimi’s, that is: windblown, sexy, multi-racial and ridiculously cool.

And timelessly so, actually–no embarrassing fashion flashbacks to be found. However, their cultural references are a tad (amusingly, adorably) stale. Below, check out the naughty plans they’d indulge in if they could be invisible for a day.

Flashioning Backward through UI’s archives is like paging through your old middle school yearbook. What the f*ck were we/they/the vast universe thinking? Today, we’ve stumbled upon fragments of Poingly’s past. Will we laugh and point?

Doubtful. The one-man electroclasher Poingly band from BK, NY generally supplies the laughter and pointing himself (whether he’s the subject of it or not) whenever the need arises, ingeniously annihilating anyone else’s L&P power.

Poingly’s trickiness doesn’t stop there: The avant garde outré mask-wearing wacko has been thrilling and frightening the trembling Billyburg indie set since 2002 when he busted onto the scene with projects alongside The Hissyfits and solo work that earned him a spot at CMJ’s Music Marathon way back in 2004.

Lauded for his self-described laptop rock, the Poingster enjoys wailing and writhing along to pre-recorded tracks–much to the simultaneous joy, consternation and amusement of listeners and gawkers–which always “involve a lot of sweat, silly costumes, a fair amount of audience participation, semi-nudity and a lot of shrieking.”

Perhaps it’s Poingly’s existential, Ginsbergian Howl against the banality, self-imposed hypocrisy and cluelessness inherent in too much of the Billyburg hipster lifestyle.

Below, check out his strikingly cogent take on the anti-gentrification sentiment in New York City–by the gentrifiers themselves. Once you get past the wigs, the pasty boob shots and the interesting leg gear, you’ll find a Zen Buddhist waiting to gently slap the smugness off your mug. (Full disclosure: Poingly is a former UI blogger, too. True renaissance man, no? Hey Poingly, call us sometime!)

Flashioning Backward through UI’s archives is like paging through your old middle school yearbook. You can’t help but hold your breath and hope your BFF Tracie wasn’t busted in perpetuity sporting those damn pink leg-warmers she insisted on wearing everywhere. Today, we’ve stumbled upon fragments of Crooked Fingers’ past.

CF lucked out–no fashion faux pas to be found. The Denver, CO, indie rockers are clearly more interested in keeping it real and sticking to what they get paid for (i.e., making music) than making waves on the catwalk.

Aggressively outré without being flashy about it, Crooked Fingers are the Prada of the music world. While a lot of outsiders don’t really get what it is they’re selling–more than just a pretty package; it’s like a philosophy on life wrapped in a pretty, tuneful package–music insiders totally get Eric Bachmann’s schtick. And whether they like the schtick or not, they can’t help but respect it.

It seems Bachmann’s yin and yang approach to album-crafting bleeds into his strange blend of hippie/professor, Hemingway/Lethem, dapper/slob style. Oh, and his love life too.

Below, check out why he aims to take a lover who’s the enemy of his music.