Onto-historical World

Keane, though established as a group in 1995, were all born in the mid-seventies. As a result, the music around them as they were growing up and which influenced them heavily were the things that were popular during the late eighties and early nineties. However, it is also evident that they reached back to listening to music before their time, as the band noted in an interview,

"We grew up listening to The Beatles, Paul Simon, The Pet Shop Boys, Michael Jackson, Queen, and then got into U2, R.E.M, The Smiths, and Radiohead. I guess it's classic song writing that is the main influence rather than one band in particular - we love people like Nick Drake who can convey so much emotion and write songs and albums that will be loved and cherished for many years - the things that will be in people's record collections for their whole lives."

Thus, their style emerged out of the very notion of songwriting. The fact that they were able to center their music around the piano rather than the guitar (which was typical of the age), although significant, was entirely a result of losing one of their members. By any other means, they would be just like any other rock band with guitar-heavy music. The fact that so much music was dominated by the guitar made the fact that their music was not so important to their success. It is also important to notice the timing of their success. The band came to fame in the late nineties/early millennium, when recording technology was starting to become commonplace enough that anyone could create songs. In fact, that is just what they did--their first few singles were released independently, something that could never have been done had the band emerged even a decade earlier.