The Naked And The Famous - YOU NEED TO LISTEN TO THEM!

I find it difficult to get excited about bands these days. The charts are flooded with bubblegum pop and songs I know will only be 1 hit wonders. Yes, I know there are established big names out there who also release good music and I do like it. But what gets my music juices flowing are bands that is not that famous, but have already carved a nice little place in the music world. Niche bands that truly blows you away, like The Naked And The Famous. The alternative rock band from Auckland, New Zealand formed in 2008 when Thom Powers and Alisa Xayalith got together to create musical magic. They aren't that well-known in South Africa as yet, but local music fans will catch on to them. The band took their name from a line in the English artist Tricky's song "Tricky Kid", "everybody wants to be naked and famous", that is ambivalent about the notion of celebrity. They have released to EPs,  This Machine and No Light, and two studio albums Passive Me, Aggressive You (2010) and In Rolling Waves (2013). Since 2012, the band has been based in Los Angeles, California, U.S, “Between the time we left New Zealand for our Passive Me, Aggressive You tour in 2010 and landing in Los Angeles in 2012, is a blur of 200 or so shows around the world. We were very ready to pick a spot to settle once we reached the end of it, and LA made sense to us for many reasons,” explains Aaron in musichistorian.net. Their music ranges from dance-oriented sound that mixed gigantic analog synths with the group's dual male/female lead vocals lead vocals from guitarist Thom Powers and keyboardist Alisa Xayalith. The group's 2013 sophomore effort, In Rolling Waves, still features Powers and Xayalith, but finds the band experimenting with a more moody, somewhat serious tone that makes room for some welcome acoustic guitar, says allmusic.com. The Naked And The Famous recently supported Imagine Dragons on their tour. The Naked And The Famous has loads of songs features in TV shows:

  1. "All of This" was featured in episode 4 of The Secret Circle.
  2. "Punching in a Dream" was featured in season 2 episode 5 of The Vampire Diaries."Punching In A Dream" is the theme song for and is regularly played in the UK reality series Made in Chelsea.
  3. "The Sun" was used in episode 18 of season 4 of Gossip Girl, in the intro of the first episode of One Tree Hill season 9, in the end of episode 19 of the 1st season of The Secret Circle, in the "Moment of Truth" episode of Grey's Anatomy and at the end credits of episode 2 of the 6th season of True Blood; this episode has the same name as the song.
  4. "Girls Like You" was featured in the third episode of The Secret Circle.
  5. "Bells" was featured in the 12th episode of the 5th season of Gossip Girl and in the 22nd episode of the 8th season of Grey's Anatomy.

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