Artist · chart history
Noah & The Whale
Band Twickenham United Kingdom Active 2006–2015
Noah & The Whale formed in 2006 in Twickenham, United Kingdom and was active until 2015. Noah & The Whale has 8 chart appearances on 8 radio countdowns from 8 stations on RockLists, spanning 2011–2018. The most successful song on radio countdowns is “L.I.F.E.G.O.E.S.O.N.”, which appears on 5 lists with a best position of #14. The station that charted Noah & The Whale most often is Exit 97.7 (Albany-Schenectady-Troy, NY), with 1 appearance. The artist’s biggest year on year-end countdowns was 2011.
Noah and the Whale started out in Twickenham in 2006, named with a wink after Noah Baumbach's film The Squid and the Whale, and in the early days they were a ramshackle folk-pop troupe: Charlie Fink singing and playing guitar, his brother Doug Fink on drums, Tom Hobden on violin, Matt Owens on bass, horns in the back and Laura Marling adding backing vocals.
By Last Night on Earth, in 2011, they had shed the twee. Doug Fink was gone, Fred Abbott and Michael Petulla had joined, and the band sounded bigger and brighter, a gleaming, wide-screen rush of a record. "L.I.F.E.G.O.E.S.O.N." is its anthem, a spelled-out, hand-in-the-air singalong whose title says it all. They toured with Arcade Fire, Vampire Weekend and Phoenix, played the Royal Albert Hall and Glastonbury, and headlined Wilderness Festival in 2013.
They split in 2015, but their song "5 Years Time" got a second life when it turned up in the 2025 Superman film.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs by Noah & The Whale on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Peak year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | L.I.F.E.G.O.E.S.O.N. | 5 | #14 | – | 2011 | |
| 2 | Heart of Nowhere | 1 | #19 | – | 2013 | |
| 3 | 5 Years Time | 1 | #338 | – | – | |
| 4 | Five Years Time | 1 | #94 | – | – |
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.
Every countdown appearance
| Year | # | Song | Countdown |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | 338 | 5 Years Time | WTMD Listeners' Top 897 Songs, 2003-2018 |
| 2013 | 19 | Heart of Nowhere | Impact 89FM Top 89 Songs of 2013 |
| 2013 | 94 | Five Years Time | BBC 6 Music 100 Best Tracks Of The Last 10 Years |
| 2011 | 51 | L.I.F.E.G.O.E.S.O.N. | WFNX Top 101 Songs of 2011 |
| 2011 | 14 | L.I.F.E.G.O.E.S.O.N. | WEXT Top 97 of 2011 |
| 2011 | 24 | L.I.F.E.G.O.E.S.O.N. | WEQX Top 102.7 of 2011 |
| 2011 | 102 | L.I.F.E.G.O.E.S.O.N. | WRNR Top 103.1 Songs of 2011 |
| 2011 | 32 | L.I.F.E.G.O.E.S.O.N. | Triple J Hottest 100 of 2011 |
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