Album · 311
Transistor by 311
Transistor is an album by 311, released in 1997. 3 songs from it have charted on rock radio countdowns, with 85 countdown appearances in total. The biggest is “Beautiful Disaster”, on 47 lists with a best position of #13.
Transistor, 311's fourth album, came out on Capricorn on August 5, 1997, and it's the sound of a band stretching out and getting spacey. They eased off the rapping this time, with fewer songs built around it than on the earlier records. It was meant to be a double album, but they squeezed it onto a single CD so their fans could afford it.
Nick Hexum, P-Nut, Chad Sexton, Tim Mahoney and S.A. Martinez let the grooves wander, bubble and float, with the heavier riffs rising up out of the haze. "Beautiful Disaster" is the sticky, sunny standout, "Prisoner" rolls along on a laid-back sway, and the title track opens the whole thing up into something close to space rock.
Critics at the time mostly shrugged, calling it too long and too self-indulgent, but opinion has warmed considerably since, and the album went platinum.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs from Transistor on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Years |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Beautiful Disaster | 47 | #13 | – | 1997–2023 | |
| 2 | Prisoner | 18 | #26 | – | 1997–2021 | |
| 3 | Transistor | 20 | #38 | – | 1997–2013 |
Only songs that appear on at least one countdown are listed. Release data from MusicBrainz.