Artist · chart history · #569 in indie & aaa artist polls
The Mars Volta
Band El Paso United States Formed 2001
The Mars Volta formed in 2001 in El Paso, United States. The Mars Volta has 49 chart appearances on 45 radio countdowns from 24 stations on RockLists, spanning 2003–2024. The most successful song on radio countdowns is “The Widow”, which appears on 28 lists with a best position of #7. The station that charted The Mars Volta most often is WBER (Rochester, NY), with 10 appearances. The artist’s biggest year on year-end countdowns was 2005.
The Mars Volta rose out of the ashes of At the Drive-In in El Paso in 2001, when guitarist Omar Rodríguez-López and singer Cedric Bixler-Zavala decided they wanted to go further out. They brought in bassist Eva Gardner, keyboardist Isaiah "Ikey" Owens, drummer Jon Theodore and Jeremy Ward on sound manipulation, and set about building a progressive rock band for the new century: wild time changes, squalls of noise and Bixler-Zavala's air-raid siren of a voice.
De-Loused in the Comatorium, in 2003, was produced by Rick Rubin, with Flea on bass after Gardner left, and the critics went wild for it, with "Inertiatic E.S.P." and "Televators" leading the charge. Frances the Mute, in 2005, went even further: produced by Rodríguez-López himself and featuring new bassist Juan Alderete and Omar's brother Marcel, it's a sprawling album of epic suites, and "The Widow", a slow-burning, howling soul ballad by comparison, became their biggest radio moment. The album was their biggest commercial success.
Amputechture, The Bedlam in Goliath, whose "Wax Simulacra" won a Grammy, and Octahedron followed, but after Noctourniquet in 2012 the band went on hiatus and broke up in 2013. The core duo patched things up and reunited the band in secret in 2019, and they have been back ever since, with Lucro Sucio; Los Ojos del Vacio arriving in April 2025.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs by The Mars Volta on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Peak year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Widow | 28 | #7 | – | 2005 | |
| 2 | Inertiatic E.S.P. | 4 | #8 | – | 2003 | |
| 3 | L'Via L'Viaquez | 3 | #43 | – | 2005 | |
| 4 | Televators | 4 | #48 | – | 2004 | |
| 5 | Viscera Eyes | 2 | #50 | – | 2006 | |
| 6 | Vigil | 1 | #48 | – | 2023 | |
| 7 | Since We've Been Wrong | 1 | #56 | – | 2009 | |
| 8 | Graveyard Love | 1 | #47 | – | 2024 | |
| 9 | Wax Simulacra | 1 | #89 | – | 2008 | |
| 10 | The Malkin Jewel | 1 | #96 | – | 2012 | |
| 11 | L'Via L'Vasques | 1 | #69 | – | 2005 | |
| 12 | No Case Gain | 1 | #64 | – | 2024 |
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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