The White Tie Affair

• Genre: Adult Alternative
• Hometown: Chicago
• The White Tie Affair Website

About

Following in Fall Out Boy's platinum-clad footsteps, fellow Chicagoans the White Tie Affair blend peppy emo and party-hard club jams into guitar pop that's sassy, glamorous and above all else, decadent. They are like the aural equivalent of a Friday-night cruise through the big city in a Hummer limo rocking with half-naked Maxim babes. The White Tie Affair started gigging around the Windy City with the specific intention of developing '80s-inspired dance music. After signing to Slightly Dangerous (a subsidiary of Epic Records) in 2007, the quintet hit the tour circuit with the likes of Metro Station, Secondhand Serenade, Kill Hannah and Making April. In support of its debut album, 2008's Walk This Way, the band teamed up with Playboy. Further cementing their party-boy image, the White Tie Affair appeared in a glitzy photo spread, played Hef's annual Pajama Party and participated in the Girls of the Big 10 Tour. At the same time, steamy, babe-a-licious videos for their first two singles, "Allow Me to Introduce Myself...Mr. Right" and "Candle (Sick and Tired)," became YouTube sensations. Edited versions quickly made their way to MTV.

- Justin Farrar