Switchfoot

OK, so the story's a little familiar: two brothers form a band, bouncing the natural pop tendencies of one member (Switchfoot frontman Jon Foreman in this case) off a bed of tightly wound bass lines, volatile drum beats, and riffs that reach the rafters. The songs rarely remain the same in Switchfoot's catalogue, though. Living up to the tides-are-changing/change-is-crucial premise of their surfer-term name, the San Diego-based band has kept critics and fans guessing. Our career-spanning Essentials playlist keeps up with their every step; the encore-ready choruses of "We Are One Tonight," the neck-yanking groove of "Stars," the melancholic shuffle of "Learning to Breathe," the yearning strings of "Faust, Midas, and Myself." If it seems a little strange that it took Switchfoot five albums to crack Billboard's Top 10, with the #3 debut of Nothing Is Sound, the band's die-hard fans knew all along this outfit was not just rad, but in it for the long haul.