Rob Thomas rose to fame in the late ‘90s as frontman of the jangle-grunge outfit Matchbox Twenty, which combined bright guitars with Thomas' angsty yowl on songs like the jittery “3 am” and the pounding “Push”. “Smooth”, Thomas' 1999 collaboration with legendary guitarist Carlos Santana, was, as its opening lyric promised, “a hot one”: The brassy showcase for Santana's licks and Thomas' seductive vocal became the second-most-popular song of the 20th century, according to Billboard. Since then, Thomas has split his time between M20 and solo efforts like “Lonely No More”, which experiment with ideas borrowed from electro-pop.