Hey

Formed in 1992, the Polish rock group Hey emerged as one of the decade’s leading acts under guitarist Piotr Banach, who would eventually depart, and frontwoman Kasia Nosowska, who later scored solo success via her 1996 album Puk Puk. Early releases mixed Polish and English lyrics, yet the strategy was abandoned once a concerted 1995 effort to conquer English-language markets collapsed; the band instead strengthened its domestic standing and rose to the forefront of Polish rock. Their debut full-length, Fire, arrived in 1993, followed by Ho! in 1994 and ? in 1995. A string of English-speaking concerts plus an English-language reissue of ? marked the attempted crossover, but the grungy new-wave and metal sound failed to connect. In response, the group gradually adopted a more industrial-rock direction that defined the rest of the 1990s. With subsequent albums issued exclusively in Polish, popularity continued to climb at home. Across the following decade the outfit issued five studio albums, several live sets, and two DVDs. In 2007 the lineup—Kasia Nosowska (vocals), Pawel Krawczyk (guitars), Marcin Zabielowicz (guitars), Jacek Chrzanowski (bass), and Robert Ligiewicz (drums)—issued an MTV Unplugged recording that reached number two on the charts.