The Naked and Famous | In Rolling Waves

New Zealand pop act The Naked and Famous had a mountain to climb when following up 2010’s Passive Me, Aggressive You. Their single “Young Blood” was a crossover hit on terrestrial radio, not unlike M83 (who finally found success in America with “Midnight City”, which has achieved jock jam status being prominently featured during every Houston Texans home game and as a bumper on sports talk radio). With those two songs hitting North American FM airwaves, there seemed, finally, to be a foundation in place to out stack the nu-rave, dubstep-bridged, cookie cutter nonsense on the Billboard charts. Unfortunately, on In Rolling Waves there doesn’t appear to have what major labels and out of touch radio programmers call a “hit”, and I doubt The Naked and Famous are going to sell their dignity by visiting every station across North America, playing acoustically for the employees at lunchtime (which is common practice for any act you’ve ever heard on the dial). That is of course, unless they did already, which would explain the surprising success of “Young Blood”. The album is still worth a purchase, or at the very least, a stream.