Powderfinger

Australian megastars from the mid-'90s until their breakup in 2010, Powderfinger were a guitar-based, highly melodic adult-alternative band. Directly descended from the radio-ready pop smarts of Toad the Wet Sprocket, Powderfinger came off as a slightly more straightforward version of Radiohead. Marked by the velvety vocals of singer Bernard Fanning, the group broke on a large scale with third album Internationalist in 1998. The album went gold in its first week and won a string of Australian music awards (ARIAs), with "The Day You Come" winning Single of the Year, the record winning Album of the Year, and Powderfinger named Band of the Year. From there, the group's albums tended to follow the same routes to chart and critical success, with 2000's Odyssey Number Five becoming their best-selling album. They went on hiatus from 2005 to '07, during which Fanning's solo release, Tea & Sympathy, won an ARIA for Album of the Year. Their '07 return produced Dream Days at the Hotel Existence, with final album Golden Rule appearing in 2009. A year later, the band called it quits.