[7] The band has released four studio albums: Passive Me, Aggressive You (2010), In Rolling Waves (2013), Simple Forms (2016) and Recover (2020).

[10] The band formed in 2007 when Powers and Xayalith were working on what became two extended plays—This Machine and No Light—that they recorded with engineer Aaron Short, a fellow student at Auckland's Music and Audio Institute of New Zealand.

Knapp and Clark left the group in 2009 and were subsequently replaced with Jesse Wood and David Beadle.

[12] The Naked and Famous released their debut studio album, Passive Me, Aggressive You, on 6 September 2010 on their own label,[13] Somewhat Damaged.

On 28 February 2013, the band announced One Temporary Escape, a concert film recorded at The Warfield in San Francisco in 2012.

[18] Entering Los Angeles' Sunset Sound studio in March 2013 with engineer Billy Bush (who had mixed the previous album), they began the process of recording In Rolling Waves.

On 23 July 2013, the band revealed their new single "Hearts Like Ours" along with the release date for their second studio album In Rolling Waves, on 16 September 2013 in the UK.

[3] In February 2017, it was announced that the band would perform as opening acts, alongside Wavves, in Blink-182's 2017 spring tour which would visit mostly the southern United States.

[27] That same month, it was announced that Jesse Wood and founding member Aaron Short had departed the band.

[31] In late 2021, lead vocalist Alisa Xayalith broadcast a tune called "High Fidelity", the debut song from the singer's forthcoming EP.