Breaking Artist: 1990s

Who: Three rowdy Scotsmen who are veterans of both Glasgow's rich rock & roll tradition and its raucous party scene. The trio was discovered at a Franz Ferdinand afterparty and offered a record deal on the spot.

Sounds Like: Pub-ready sing-along rock featuring hand claps, witty one-liners and a cast of debauched characters straight from the Glaswegian streets.

Three Things You Should Know:
1. Singer-guitarist Jackie McKeown used to play in a band called Yummy Fur with future Franz members Alex Kapranos and Paul Thomson. And before they called themselves 1990s, the trio served as the live backing band for Damo Suzuki of legendary krautrockers Can.
2. When the 1990s sing about drugs, rest assured they've done their research. "The first time me and my friend took ketamine, we stood in this kitchen stock-still for two hours," McKeown remembers. "Afterward, my friend was like, 'I was in space.' And I was like, 'Me too!' We were floating around with stars and planets, but our friends had to keep wiping our noses."
3. Though the 1990s licensed their clever pop song "You're Supposed to Be My Friend" to a recent Nissan ad, they promise they'll never sell their most precious track. "'See You at the Lights' is a little flower," McKeown says of the catchy track. "He's a nice little guy, and you wanna take him under your wing."

Get It: The 1990s' debut, Cookies, came out July 31st.

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Song Stories

“Piano Man”

Billy Joel | 1973

Billy Joel’s first hit, “Piano Man,” was – ironically – an autobiographical lament about how his first album wasn’t a hit. When Cold Spring Harbor didn’t take off, Joel briefly became a lounge pianist in Los Angeles, and this song, about that experience, expressed his frustrations and fears at the time: “And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar/And say, ‘Man, what are you doing here?’” “It was all right,” Joel said later, about the gig. “I got free drinks and union scale, which was the first steady money I’d made in a long time.”

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