Artist · chart history · #241 in alternative artist polls
Bloc Party
Band Reading United Kingdom Formed 1999 English indie rock band
Bloc Party formed in 1999 in Reading, United Kingdom. Bloc Party has 117 chart appearances on 70 radio countdowns from 29 stations on RockLists, spanning 2004–2025. The most successful song on radio countdowns is “Banquet”, which appears on 34 lists with a best position of #14. The station that charted Bloc Party most often is CD101 (Columbus, OH), with 33 appearances. The artist’s biggest year on year-end countdowns was 2005.
Bloc Party got their start at the Reading Festival in 1999, where Kele Okereke and Russell Lissack decided to form a band, and after trying out several names they settled on this one in 2003. Okereke sang and played rhythm guitar, Lissack played lead, Gordon Moakes joined on bass and keyboards after answering an advert in a music paper, and Matt Tong was picked at an audition to play drums. Their break came when they handed a demo of "She's Hearing Voices" to BBC Radio 1's Steve Lamacq and to Alex Kapranos of Franz Ferdinand.
Silent Alarm came out in February 2005, and it sounds like a city at rush hour: wiry, interlocking guitars, drums that never sit still, and Okereke's voice pitched between yearning and alarm. "Banquet" is a nervy, strutting dance-floor jolt, "Helicopter" a breathless sprint, and "Like Eating Glass" and "Positive Tension" crackle with anxious energy. The album went platinum in Britain, won acclaim across the board, and picked up Album of the Year honors at the PLUG Awards and elsewhere. It made them one of the leading English bands of the post-punk revival.
A Weekend in the City, in 2007, widened the frame, the sound bigger and more expansive, and it climbed to number 2 in Britain and number 12 on the Billboard 200. "The Prayer" struts over a chanting beat, "I Still Remember" is a bittersweet ache, and "Hunting For Witches" bristles. Intimacy followed in August 2008.
After a hiatus that began in October 2009, they came back in September 2011 and made Four, with "Octopus", which reached number 3 in Britain, and then The Nextwave Sessions EP in 2013, with "Ratchet". Tong left, Moakes soon followed, and a new lineup, with Louise Bartle on drums and Justin Harris on bass, made Hymns in 2016 and Alpha Games in 2022. A seventh album, Anatomy of a Brief Romance, came out in September 2026. They have sold more than 3 million albums worldwide.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs by Bloc Party on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Peak year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Banquet | 34 | #14 | – | 2005 | |
| 2 | Helicopter | 20 | #11 | – | 2005 | |
| 3 | The Prayer | 14 | #20 | – | 2007 | |
| 4 | I Still Remember | 18 | #36 | – | 2007 | |
| 5 | Octopus | 4 | #21 | – | 2012 | |
| 6 | Two More Years | 3 | #23 | – | 2005 | |
| 7 | Flux | 2 | #32 | – | 2008 | |
| 8 | Hunting For Witches | 2 | #24 | – | 2007 | |
| 9 | One Month Off | 3 | #66 | – | 2008 | |
| 10 | Like Eating Glass | 2 | #88 | – | 2005 | |
| 11 | Ratchet | 2 | #36 | – | 2013 | |
| 12 | One more chance | 2 | #19 | – | 2009 | |
| 13 | Traps | 1 | #42 | – | 2022 | |
| 14 | Positive Tension | 1 | #45 | – | 2005 | |
| 15 | Talons | 1 | #28 | – | 2008 | |
| 16 | This Modern Love | 3 | #511 | – | – | |
| 17 | V.a.l.i.s. | 2 | #113 | – | 2012 | |
| 18 | Halo | 1 | #82 | – | 2009 | |
| 19 | Little Thoughts | 1 | #44 | – | 2004 |
Albums with charting songs
Where each song was first released, from MusicBrainz.
Year-end chart timeline
Combined year-end countdown points per year. Taller bars mean more songs placing higher across more stations.
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