2016 is shaping up to be an interesting year for music. Kanye continues to tweet utter nonsense, the new Adele is still climbing the charts, Kendrick Lamar pulled a Beyonce and released a new album out of nowhere. A quarter of the way through and the year is already a mixed bag. Here are some highlights from the past month to ponder as we enter the warm months and festival season.

The Good:
The Foo Fighters, helmed by the nicest-guy-in-rock-and-roll Dave Grohl, are easily one of the best liked bands in the business. From playing surprise shows to playing through bodily injuries, the band wins hearts with pretty much everything they do. Even their foray into television, the HBO documentary series called Sonic Highways that focused on the evolution of American music, was well received and granted a second season. It seemed like the grandeur that is the Foo Fighters would go on everlong. That is until the band’s drummer Taylor Hawkins, during an interview at the Guitar Center Drum-Off, said when asked about the future of the band, “We’re on ihateus right now, we’re on an indefinite ihateus.”

The mention of an ihateus (hiatus) sent fans scrambling. What did he mean ‘hiatus’? Sure, Grohl had appeared sans-band and played what could sort of be considered solo shows, namely a rendition of “Blackbird” at 2016 Oscars, but was that really enough to topple such a successful and beloved band? Was Hawkins serious? Did being the drummer for a guy known as “the drummer from Nirvana” finally get to him? The comment sparked utter panic. The Foo Fighters quickly took to social media and amidst the rumors of an impending end, teased a ‘special announcement.’ Many took the tweet as confirmation that the band was in fact breaking up.

In true Foo Fighter fashion, the band stuck with their gimmick-y roots and teased what would be the immediate future of the band: Dave and his oversized sunglasses going solo and his bandmates pressing on without him. In this parallel universe, Grohl was launching a new electronica project that featured him on keyboards and vocals and nothing else. The rest of the band- guitarist Pat Smear, bassist Nate Mendel, guitarist Chris Shiflett and Hawkins- were continuing the Foo Fighters without him. After a brainstorming session, they produced a list of possible replacements, which included Montrose’s Hagar, Mötley Crüe’s Vince Neil, Journey’s Steve Perry, Coldplay’s Chris Martin, Creed’s Scott Stapp, The Smashing Pumpkin’s Billy Corgan, Nick Lachey, Diplo, Justin Bieber, Drake, Gwen Stefani, Prince and Phil Collins.

It was all a big joke and everything was fine. The wasn’t breaking-up, going on hiatus or anything of the sort. They were however going to take the opportunity to pull our leg and cast Lachey as the new Grohl. It was a fitting response from the band that tends to cross-dress in their music videos. It’s nice to know what no matter what happens with the election at least the future will have more Foo.

The Sad:
The Foo Fighters may be staying together, but that might not be true for synth-pop rocker’s Motion City Soundtrack. While they don’t have the pull of a band as big as the Foo Fighters, they have a steady following of fans that grew up to their 2005 record Commit This to Memory, produced by Blink-182’s Mark Hoppus, and their 2003 debut I Am the Movie. Despite a largely successful 10-year anniversary tour in 2015, the band had “a quiet winter” over the course of which vocalist/guitarist Justin Pierre, guitarist Joshua Cain, keyboard/synth player Jesse Johnson, bassist/pianist Matthew Taylor, and drummer Claudio Rivera discussed the future of the band. They reemerged in 2016 to post this statement via their Facebook:

The phrase “for now we are done” strung for everyone, but especially for those of us who have listened to MCS since middle school. There’s no doubt that Pierre and the others will continue in some way with music, whether it be in new bands or old projects. Perhaps this means that Pierre’s side project Farewell Continental is due for another album? Or maybe it was Cain’s turn in the spotlight? In the past, he produced music for on-and-off-again pop rocker’s Metro Station and also produced music videos for the since-disbanded Sing It Loud (side note: apparently their lead singer, Pat Brown, now plays with Hoodie Allen?!) Whatever it is- whether it’s music, film, multimedia or comics, the men of Motion City will have a loyal following with them as they pursue whatever is next in their careers. Don’t get me wrong, the future freaks [us] out, but everything is alright.

The Ugly
You’d never expect things to get rowdy at a Foxing show. The music of the atmospheric indie band, even in live form doesn’t exactly inspire circle pits. That didn’t stop a couple dissenters at a recent show in Chicago from starting a fight. The situation involved venue security and ended with the band’s lead singer, Conor Murphy, nose being broken. Pretty metal for an indie band. On the incident, Murphy said, “I hope i come out of this looking like owen wilson” and finished the show dripping blood.

To the person who likely broke our singer’s nose, fought security, & punched people—you made an otherwise really good night bad for everyone

— Foxing (@FOXINGtheband) March 7, 2016

This is the kind of behavior that you’d expect at the maybe Taste of Chaos, but not a Foxing show. Whatever sparked the incident, it luckily didn’t derail the evening or stop the band from performing the next day at Audiotree. Despite his injuries, Murphy shined in his performance. Take that haters. From now on no one can say Foxing can’t roll with the punches.

-Zoe Marquedant