Music goes in cycles. When one artist hits it big, similar artists will follow. Korn brought us Limp Bizkit and Linkin Park. Nirvana brought us Stone Temple Pilots and Bush.

Last year, the music world was hit with a wave of young black female singer-songwriters, who attempted to merge soul traditions with current R&B sounds. This wave began with Lauryn Hill and Erykah Badu and eventually included the likes of Macy Gray, India Arie, and Alicia Keys.

It looks like the music industry realized that if young, attractive black women could write their own songs and break-out of the pre-produced pop mold, perhaps young, attractive white women could do the same. That brings us to the music industry's biggest current trend -- young female singer-songwriters, or as we might call them, "the New Liliths."

The New Liliths combine TRL-ready youth and beauty with sensitive singer-songwriter music along the lines of artists from the mid-90's Lilith Fair tour, such as Jewel and Sarah McLachlan. Unlike Britney Spears, they sing pop songs that aren't dance tunes, they play their own instruments, and they are brunettes instead of blondes -- which sends the subliminal message "I'm not an bubblehead, I'm a serious artist."

Three such artists getting big searches right now include guitarist Michelle Branch, pianist Vanessa Carlton, and our choice as the big breakout star based on recent search traffic, guitarist Avril Lavigne.

Arizona native Branch began this current wave of singer-songwriters with her album The Spirit Room, which came out last August (Buy it from CDNOW). It was released only three years after she learned to play guitar at the age of 14. Since Branch was the first of the New Liliths, it was quite a shock to turn on MTV last summer and see a guitar-playing, fully-clothed female sandwiched between a writhing Britney Spears and a belly-dancing Shakira.

Carlton, at 21, is a bit older than the other New Liliths, but she's definitely got the attractive plus sensitive equation down pat. This small-town Pennsylvania girl recently debuted at #5 on the Billboard album chart with her record Be Not Nobody (Buy it from CDNOW). You've probably seen the ubiquitous video, in which Carlton plays her piano on the back of a flatbed truck while passing a number of scenes from the city to the desert.

While Branch and Carlton are establishing a fan base slowly, Avril Lavigne has come from nowhere and raced up our search logs. Searches for her started appearing in mid-March, and in the last three weeks they've increased sixfold. Last week, she got more searches than Carlton and Branch combined, even though her video just recently debuted on MTV and her album Let Go doesn't come out until June 4 (Pre-order it from CDNOW).

The 17-year-old Lavigne (pronounced lah-VEEN) was born in Napanee, Ontario but she honed her songwriting skills in New York City and Los Angeles over the last year or two. Her first video and single position her as a harder-rocking pop star, a female counterpart to skater punk-pop bands like Sum-41 and Blink-182. Maybe she needs a numeral in her name, like Avril-17.

How new is Lavigne? Her record company, Arista, doesn't even have a section for her on their website.

All three of these artists are making waves on radio and MTV. For example, Lavigne's video for "Complicated" was #7 on MTV's TRL top ten last week, and Carlton's "A Thousand Miles" was #3, while Branch's second single "All You Wanted" was recently retired from the countdown after spending 50 days on the show.

With more female singer-songwriters sure to follow these three, how will any single singer stand out? Well, check out the Lycos search page for Vanessa Carlton. You'll notice that a singer named Jessica Weiser has made "Vanessa Carlton" a keyword on her site so that she comes up #2 on the search for Carlton and can attract some of Carlton's fans. Now, that's a way to be noticed.

TOMORROW: The window that breaks and fixes itself.