Breaking Artist: Tegan and Sara

Who: Calgary-born identical twins who started touring Canada on Greyhound buses in 2000.

Sounds Like: Smart, nuanced guitar-and-keyboard pop that merges Sara's angular, hook-filled ditties and Tegan's melancholic odes to heartbreak.

Three Things You Should Know:
1. Tegan and Sara have five albums out, but 2004's So Jealous put them on the map in a major way: The album won a Juno (the Canadian equivalent of a Grammy) and the White Stripes released an EP named after the girls' angular pop gem "Walking With A Ghost" that included a high-wattage cover of the track.
2. The 26-year-old identical twins may look and sound alike, but they insist they're totally different. "It's impossible for me to think Tegan sounds like me," Sara says. "I literally might as well be in a band with Nick Cave."
3. They've been gleeful self-promoters since they were three years old. "For Christmas, my parents got us one of those Fisher-Price tape records," says Sara. "We were total narcissists: All we wanted to do was listen to our own voices."

Get It: Tegan and Sara's new album The Con is in stores now. Check out our video for footage of the band working in the studio with Death Cab for Cutie's Chris Walla, debating what to name their record and chatting about their favorite live shows.

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Song Stories

“Satisfied”

Tom Waits | 2011

Only the genius of Tom Waits could combine the subject of mortality, a reoccurring theme in his work, with wordplay that name checks both Mick and Keith, whom he calls "Mr. Jagger" and "Mr. Richards," and the title of their magnum opus, "Satisfaction." And to show just how cool Waits really is, he even got Mr. Richards to play along, one of nine guest appearances the guitarist has made on three Waits albums. "This growling roadhouse stomp is a late-breaking response to the Stones' greatest hit," Rolling Stone said of the track.

More Song Stories entries »

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