Stereophonics

Formed in 1992, Stereophonics rose up alongside the nascent Britpop movement, but they always seemed to exist just outside that scene. For one, hailing from the small Welsh village of Cwmaman—where singer/guitarist Kelly Jones and drummer Stuart Cable grew up on the same street—put them at a geographic remove from the London hipsters, while the band’s formative tastes leaned more toward no-frills blue-collar classic rock. (Prior to 1996, they were known as Tragic Love Company, a nod to riff-wielding heroes The Tragically Hip, Mother Love Bone, and Bad Company.) But in Jones, the band possessed a raspy yet melodic mouthpiece who could scale the power-ballad peaks of Bends-era Radiohead (see: 1997’s debut Top 20 single “Traffic”), while making Rod Stewart standards his own (with a faithful 1999 rendition of “Handbags and Gladrags”). And long after the Britpop party flamed out, Stereophonics continued to rack up the hits—in 2005, the band scored their first No. 1 single with the driving indie anthem “Dakota,” while in 2022, Oochya! became their eighth album to top the UK charts.