Artist · chart history · #213 in alternative artist polls
Foster The People
Band Los Angeles United States Formed 2009
Foster The People formed in 2009 in Los Angeles, United States. Foster The People has 210 chart appearances on 127 radio countdowns from 52 stations on RockLists, spanning 2010–2026. The most successful song on radio countdowns is “Pumped up Kicks”, which appears on 83 lists and was voted number one 18 times. In total the artist has topped 18 countdowns. The station that charted Foster The People most often is WYEP (Pittsburgh, PA), with 16 appearances. The artist’s biggest year on year-end countdowns was 2011.
Foster the People started in Los Angeles in 2009, after Mark Foster had spent years scraping by as a musician and writing commercial jingles, and it's easy to hear the jingle writer in there: these are songs built to lodge in your head on the first pass. Foster sings and plays guitar, keyboards and synths, and the first lineup had Cubbie Fink on bass and Mark Pontius on drums. "Pumped Up Kicks" went viral in 2010, landed them a deal with Startime International and, after Torches arrived in May 2011, crossed over onto commercial radio and climbed to number three on the Hot 100: a sunny, loping indie-pop groove.
Torches kept delivering with "Helena Beat", "Houdini", "Call It What You Want" and "Don't Stop (Color on the Walls)", all shiny synths and handclap-ready choruses, and the band picked up 3 Grammy nominations. After 2 years on the road, Supermodel followed in 2014 with "Coming of Age" and "Best Friend", a busier, more restless record.
Isom Innis and Sean Cimino, both former touring musicians, joined for Sacred Hearts Club in 2017, and "Sit Next to Me" went quadruple platinum. Paradise State of Mind followed in August 2024 to mostly warm reviews.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs by Foster The People on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Peak year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Pumped up Kicks | 83 | #1 | 18 | 2011 | |
| 2 | Helena Beat | 35 | #6 | – | 2011 | |
| 3 | Sit Next To Me | 18 | #2 | – | 2018 | |
| 4 | Don't Stop (Color On The Walls | 22 | #15 | – | 2011 | |
| 5 | Coming Of Age | 18 | #8 | – | 2014 | |
| 6 | Houdini | 7 | #29 | – | 2012 | |
| 7 | Best Friend | 5 | #17 | – | 2014 | |
| 8 | Don't Stop | 8 | #29 | – | 2011 | |
| 9 | Call It What You Want | 2 | #14 | – | 2011 | |
| 10 | Are You What You Want To Be? | 3 | #10 | – | 2015 | |
| 11 | Worst Nites | 3 | #26 | – | 2019 | |
| 12 | Doing It For The Money | 2 | #48 | – | 2017 | |
| 13 | Ask Yourself | 1 | #76 | – | 2014 | |
| 14 | I Love My Friends | 1 | #72 | – | 2018 | |
| 15 | See You in the Afterlife | 1 | #86 | – | 2025 |
Albums with charting songs
Where each song was first released, from MusicBrainz.
Featured on
Songs by other artists credited with Foster The People as a guest.
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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