Artist · chart history · #755 in indie & aaa artist polls
Hold Steady
Band Brooklyn United States Formed 2003
Hold Steady formed in 2003 in Brooklyn, United States. Hold Steady has 95 chart appearances on 55 radio countdowns from 21 stations on RockLists, spanning 2006–2026. The most successful song on radio countdowns is “Sequestered In Memphis”, which appears on 21 lists with a best position of #9. The station that charted Hold Steady most often is WYEP (Pittsburgh, PA), with 21 appearances. The artist’s biggest year on year-end countdowns was 2008.
The Hold Steady play bar-band rock and roll with a novelist on the mic. Craig Finn and guitarist Tad Kubler came out of Lifter Puller, and in Brooklyn they built a new band around big, classic-rock guitars and Finn's dense, talky storytelling, with Galen Polivka on bass, Bobby Drake on drums and Franz Nicolay on keyboards. The songs keep circling back to the same crowd: characters in Minneapolis wrestling with drugs, religion and redemption, characters who wander in and out of albums like regulars at the same dive.
Almost Killed Me started it in 2004, but Boys and Girls in America, in 2006, is where everything clicked, with "Stuck Between Stations" and "Chips Ahoy!" roaring like classic rock records played at a house party. Stay Positive kept up the pace in 2008, with "Sequestered In Memphis" and the title track.
Nicolay left in 2010, before Heaven Is Whenever, and guitarist Steve Selvidge came in on the following tour; Teeth Dreams arrived in 2014. Nicolay rejoined in 2016, and the six-piece has since run concert residencies in the US, the UK and Australia, made Thrashing Thru the Passion with producer Josh Kaufman in 2019, and followed it with Open Door Policy and The Price of Progress.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs by Hold Steady on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Peak year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Sequestered In Memphis | 21 | #9 | – | 2008 | |
| 2 | Stuck Between Stations | 19 | #117 | – | – | |
| 3 | Family Farm | 4 | #10 | – | 2021 | |
| 4 | Your Little Hoodrat Friend | 5 | #101 | – | – | |
| 5 | Constructive Summer | 5 | #48 | – | 2008 | |
| 6 | Chips Ahoy! | 6 | #39 | – | 2006 | |
| 7 | Hurricane J | 5 | #15 | – | 2010 | |
| 8 | Spinners | 8 | #50 | – | 2014 | |
| 9 | Lord I'm Discouraged | 5 | #86 | – | 2008 | |
| 10 | Stay Positive | 4 | #97 | – | 2008 | |
| 11 | Weekenders | 2 | #43 | – | 2010 | |
| 12 | Denver Haircut | 2 | #76 | – | 2019 | |
| 13 | Ask Her For Aderall | 1 | #569 | – | – | |
| 14 | The Weekenders | 1 | #83 | – | 2010 | |
| 15 | Cheyenne Sunrise | 1 | #657 | – | – | |
| 16 | I Hope This Whole Thing Didn't Frighten You | 1 | #89 | – | 2014 | |
| 17 | Massive Nights | 1 | #806 | – | – | |
| 18 | Stuck Between Two Stations | 1 | #859 | – | – | |
| 19 | Grand Junction | 1 | #87 | – | 2023 | |
| 20 | Sideways Skull | 1 | #100 | – | 2023 |
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.
Comments
Log in or create a free account to join the conversation about Hold Steady.
No comments yet. Be the first to share your thoughts.