Artist · chart history · #661 in indie & aaa artist polls
The Fray
Band Denver United States Formed 2002 US alternative rock band
The Fray formed in 2002 in Denver, United States. The Fray has 62 chart appearances on 51 radio countdowns from 28 stations on RockLists, spanning 2005–2025. The most successful song on radio countdowns is “How to Save a Life”, which appears on 22 lists with a best position of #10. The station that charted The Fray most often is CD101 (Columbus, OH), with 8 appearances. The artist’s biggest year on year-end countdowns was 2009.
The Fray started in Denver in 2002, when schoolmates Isaac Slade and Joe King decided to make music together, and they built their sound around the piano rather than the guitar: big, earnest, slow-building rock that plays like the emotional peak of a TV drama. Dave Welsh and Ben Wysocki round out the band, and the comparisons to Coldplay and Keane came quickly, though the band itself points to Counting Crows, Better Than Ezra and U2.
How to Save a Life (2005), on Epic, was their debut, and it was a monster: "Over My Head (Cable Car)" climbed to number eight on the Billboard Hot 100, and the title track, a hushed, aching piano ballad that swells into a full-band plea, went to number three and became a hit across much of the world. Both songs picked up Grammy nominations, and the album went quadruple platinum in the US.
The self-titled follow-up in 2009 debuted at the top of the Billboard 200, led by "You Found Me", with "Heartless" among its tracks, and earned a Grammy nomination for Best Pop Vocal Album. The critics were never fully won over, but the songs stuck. Slade left in 2022, and the others carried on as a trio with the EP The Fray Is Back (2024).
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs by The Fray on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Peak year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | How to Save a Life | 22 | #10 | – | 2006 | |
| 2 | You Found Me | 9 | #3 | – | 2009 | |
| 3 | Over My Head (Cable Car) | 8 | #72 | – | 2005 | |
| 4 | Love Don't Die | 4 | #11 | – | 2014 | |
| 5 | Heartbeat | 5 | #43 | – | 2011 | |
| 6 | Heartless | 5 | #42 | – | 2009 | |
| 7 | Never Say Never | 2 | #29 | – | 2009 | |
| 8 | Run for your Life | 1 | #25 | – | 2012 | |
| 9 | Look After You | 1 | #34 | – | 2007 | |
| 10 | The Fighter | 1 | #37 | – | 2012 | |
| 11 | Say When | 1 | #40 | – | 2009 | |
| 12 | Cable Car | 1 | #333 | – | 2005 | |
| 13 | Syndicate | 1 | #91 | – | 2010 |
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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