Artist · chart history · #854 in indie & aaa artist polls
Throwing Muses
Band Newport United States Formed 1981
Throwing Muses formed in 1981 in Newport, United States. Throwing Muses has 37 chart appearances on 27 radio countdowns from 13 stations on RockLists, spanning 1995–2026. The most successful song on radio countdowns is “Not Too Soon”, which appears on 10 lists with a best position of #288. The station that charted Throwing Muses most often is CD101 (Columbus, OH), with 14 appearances. The artist’s biggest year on year-end countdowns was 1995.
Throwing Muses came out of Newport, Rhode Island, in 1981, a band built around two step-sisters with guitars, Kristin Hersh and Tanya Donelly, who split the singing and the songwriting and pulled the music in two directions at once. Hersh wrote stark, unguarded songs that lurch and swerve; Donelly brought pop hooks and sweet harmonies. Behind them, David Narcizo, on drums from 1983, played the kit his own way, leaving out the cymbals so the rhythms thud and tumble instead of crash.
Recording for 4AD and Sire, they made records that never sit still: tempos that change their minds halfway through a verse, chords that wander somewhere you didn't expect, words that read like dream diaries. The Chains Changed EP in 1987 and Hunkpapa in 1989 set the pattern, and The Real Ramona in 1991 brought "Not Too Soon" and "Counting Backwards". Donelly left that same year. Bass players rotated through, Leslie Langston, then Fred Abong, then Bernard Georges from 1992.
Down to Hersh, Narcizo and Georges, the Muses cut University in 1995, home of the churning "Bright Yellow Gun", and kept touring and recording hard until 1997, when the members' attention drifted off to other projects.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs by Throwing Muses on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Peak year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Not Too Soon | 10 | #288 | – | – | |
| 2 | Bright Yellow Gun | 8 | #83 | – | 1995 | |
| 3 | Counting Backwards | 7 | #353 | – | – | |
| 4 | Cry Baby Cry | 7 | #1766 | – | – | |
| 5 | Dizzy | 2 | #372 | – | – | |
| 6 | Summer of Love | 1 | #211 | – | 2025 | |
| 7 | Saving Grace | 1 | #640 | – | – |
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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