Color them neon

The signs are everywhere: Neon is in.

After a recent fascination with "lil," artists now apparently think "neon" is the new black.

The charge is being spearheaded by Neon Trees, the Provo, Utah, quartet behind the radio smash "Animal" that's set to crash the Top 10 this week. Though "Animal" - the new-new-wavey sing-along with the "Uh, oh, I want to go" chorus that neatly shows off the band's link to its mentors, The Killers - is the band's breakthrough, there's more where that came from on its debut "Habits" (Mercury), including the hit-in-waiting "1983."

Hot on their heels is Neon Hitch, the British singer-songwriter, signed to Warner Bros. by Kara DioGuardi, who is currently opening for 3OH!3. Though Hitch is still working on her debut album, she's already attracting attention for co-writing Ke$ha's "Blah Blah Blah" and for a clever string of covers - from Snoop Dogg's "Drop It Like It's Hot" to Mike Posner's "Cooler Than Me."

As far as whether Neon Hitch is her given name, she replies on her MySpace page, "Yes, my hippie parents actually put that on my birth certificate."

And then there's Neon Indian, the promising electronic outfit that's recently seen renewed interest after it was revealed that troubled Disney star Demi Lovato was a fan. Though the band has wrapped up its tour so it can work on the follow-up to last year's "Psychic Chasms" album, the slew of remixes it put out in August is probably still in heavy rotation at a chillwave coffee shop near you.