@Matthew Astle

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A drum ’n’ bass ambassador to the wider electronic scene, Sub Focus made his name with his blazingly technical productions of the 2000s, then levelled up by infusing his anthemic style with elements of dubstep and house. The London DJ’s roots show through in the rolling breaks of 2009’s emotive “Last Jungle”; by contrast, 2019’s “Siren” displays his dazzling studio chops in swaggering grooves and incandescent synths. But unlike many junglists, Sub Focus has never stuck to one lane: consider the slyly futuristic hip-house of 2013’s “Turn Back Time” or the dreamy tropical house of 2017’s “Don’t You Feel It”.

Tension can be a great motivator for a band, and no group has put that maxim to the test quite like Fleetwood Mac, a ’60s British blues-rock outfit that—through a series of lineup changes, stylistic shifts and rocky internal romances—became the paragons of ‘70s Californian pop. Since the band’s formation in London in 1967, drummer Mick Fleetwood and bassist John McVie have served as both the rhythmic and spiritual anchors for a group that has hosted a revolving-door procession of outsized personalities, starting with Peter Green, the budding guitar god responsible for early hits like “Black Magic Woman” (famously covered by Santana) and the tranquil instrumental “Albatross” (which The Beatles admittedly aped on their <I>Abbey Road</I> track “Sun King”).<br> After Green quit in 1970, the band cycled through different frontmen—Danny Kirwan and Bob Welch among them—while their keyboardist, McVie’s wife Christine, emerged as a female vocal foil. After a relocation to L.A., they welcomed singer/songwriter Lindsey Buckingham and his musical/romantic partner Stevie Nicks into the fold, heralding Fleetwood Mac’s transition into soft-rock hitmakers on their 1975 self-titled effort. But Nicks’ star turns on “Rhiannon” and “Landslide” revealed a darker mystique at the core of their easygoing sound and, as sudden success caused the long-term relationships within the band to disintegrate, their next release effectively invented a new genre: rock album as couples therapy. On 1977’s <I>Rumours</I>, Fleetwood Mac dressed up the bitterest break-up songs in the smoothest, sultriest arrangements to the tune of over 40 million copies sold; the album’s appeal is so universal that it’s been both cited by Courtney Love as an influence and used to soundtrack Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign.<br> But the band were eager to play against pop-star type—1979’s double-album colossus <I>Tusk</I> betrayed Buckingham’s affinity for post-punk, and though it was deemed a commercial disappointment at the time, it has since been embraced as a cult classic by discerning indie rockers. And even as more streamlined ‘80s efforts like <I>Mirage</I> and <I>Tango in the Night</I> reasserted their pop panache, Fleetwood Mac have remained a cauldron of drama and intra-band acrimony, the principal members seemingly coming and going without warning. In the wake of Buckingham’s departure in 2018, the group enlisted Crowded House singer Neil Finn and Tom Petty sideman Mike Campbell. Christine McVie, who wrote some of the band’s biggest songs, including “Don’t Stop”, “You Make Lovin' Fun” and “Over My Head”, died in November 2022 at the age of 79.

How do you follow-up a stint in the most influential and impactful rock band of your generation? Start the most consistent and long-lasting one. Suddenly relieved of his drummer duties in Nirvana following Kurt Cobain’s 1994 suicide, Dave Grohl dropped his sticks and grabbed his pick, assuming the role of singer/guitarist for a new solo project he dubbed Foo Fighters (named after a World War II-era military term for UFOs). His scrappy 1995 debut under the alias—performed and recorded almost entirely on his own—revealed a Cobain-like gift for folding insidious hooks into raw, grungy riffs. But on the more polished 1997 follow-up, <i>The Colour and the Shape</i>, Grohl revealed a commercial ambition and crowd-pleasing congeniality that his former group never would’ve entertained. On that record, the Foos became a proper band, with Grohl flanked by former Germs and Nirvana touring guitarist Pat Smear, Sunny Day Real Estate bassist Nate Mendel, and the hard-hitting but ever-affable drummer Taylor Hawkins. From the late ‘90s into the 2020s, the Foos have reigned as alt-rock’s most reliable hit machine and—thanks to their comedic, heavily costumed videos—most eager court jesters, cranking out mosh-pit ragers (“All My Life”), jugular-seizing power ballads (“Best of You”), and steady-as-Petty sing-alongs (“Learn to Fly”) with equal aplomb. And as one of the few ‘90s-era rock bands to maintain their festival-headliner status well into the 21st century, the Foos have become the genre’s most committed keepers of the flame. Whether building their 2014 album <i>Sonic Highways</i> around an HBO music-history series or collaborating with legends like Paul McCartney, Foo Fighters are the sturdy connective tissue between the classic-rock era and the modern age.

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