Artist · chart history
The Mountain Goats
Band Claremont United States Formed 1991
The Mountain Goats formed in 1991 in Claremont, United States. The Mountain Goats has 38 chart appearances on 26 radio countdowns from 12 stations on RockLists, spanning 2004–2026. The most successful song on radio countdowns is “This Year”, which appears on 14 lists with a best position of #11. The station that charted The Mountain Goats most often is The Colorado Sound (Fort Collins–Denver, CO), with 14 appearances. The artist’s biggest year on year-end countdowns was 2022.
The Mountain Goats started in Claremont, California, in 1991, and for years the band was really just John Darnielle, a guy with a boombox, a guitar and a torrent of words, cranking out low-fi home recordings on cassette and 7-inch vinyl. The plural name was a joke that eventually came true. Rachel Ware sang and played bass in the mid-'90s, Peter Hughes took over the bass from 1996, and plenty of friends dropped by, Franklin Bruno, John Vanderslice, Kaki King and Annie Clark among them.
From 2002 on, Darnielle started making proper studio records with a full band behind him, and the songs only got sharper. All Hail West Texas carries "The Best Ever Death Metal Band in Denton", strummed hard and sung like a news bulletin, and Tallahassee has "No Children", bouncy and venomous in the same breath. "This Year" is the one the countdowns keep coming back to: a fist-pumping rush of acoustic guitar with Darnielle yelping over the top as if his life depended on it.
Their records have come out on Merge and 4AD, Jon Wurster has been on drums since 2007 and Matt Douglas joined in 2015, and the band calls Durham, North Carolina, home.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs by The Mountain Goats on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Peak year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | This Year | 14 | #11 | – | 2005 | |
| 2 | No Children | 4 | #105 | – | – | |
| 3 | Training Montage | 2 | #26 | – | 2022 | |
| 4 | Rain in Soho | 4 | #454 | – | – | |
| 5 | The Best Ever Metal Band In Denton | 1 | #409 | – | – | |
| 6 | The Best Ever Death Metal In Denton | 1 | #479 | – | – | |
| 7 | The Best Ever Death Metal Band in Denton | 1 | #386 | – | – | |
| 8 | FM | 1 | #470 | – | – | |
| 9 | Mobile | 1 | #626 | – | – | |
| 10 | High Hawk Season | 1 | #76 | – | 2011 | |
| 11 | Tallahassee | 1 | #693 | – | – | |
| 12 | Younger | 1 | #89 | – | 2019 | |
| 13 | Summer | 1 | #751 | – | – | |
| 14 | Your Belgian Things | 1 | #46 | – | 2004 | |
| 15 | The Doc Gooden | 1 | #83 | – | 2019 | |
| 16 | Dark In Here | 1 | #995 | – | – | |
| 17 | Cold at Night | 1 | #88 | – | 2025 | |
| 18 | Best Ever Death Metal Band In Denton | 1 | #797 | – | – |
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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