Artist · chart history · #309 in alternative artist polls
Yello
Band Zurich Switzerland Formed 1979 Swiss electronica duo
Yello formed in 1979 in Zurich, Switzerland. Yello has 27 chart appearances on 25 radio countdowns from 11 stations on RockLists, spanning 1987–2022. The most successful song on radio countdowns is “Oh Yeah”, which appears on 20 lists with a best position of #79. The station that charted Yello most often is Live 105 (San Francisco, CA), with 7 appearances. The artist’s biggest year on year-end countdowns was 2020.
Yello came out of Zurich in 1979, and for most of the time since they've been a duo: Dieter Meier, the vocalist and lyricist, and Boris Blank, who builds the music. Carlos Perón, there at the start, walked away in 1983. What Blank builds is electronic pop that runs on rhythm and on strange, off-kilter samples, with Meier crooning and muttering over the top like a lounge singer who wandered into a laboratory.
You Gotta Say Yes to Another Excess, in 1983, brought "I Love You", and Stella, in 1985, brought "Oh Yeah", a slinky, ridiculous and utterly unshakeable slab of baritone purring and chattering electronics that the movies could not stop using. It turned up in Ferris Bueller's Day Off, The Secret of My Success and Uncle Buck, and even on The Simpsons. "The Race", in 1988, went the other way, all galloping momentum, and reached number 7 on the UK Singles Chart.
They have recorded for Polydor and Island, have made 14 studio albums since 1980, and in 2014 picked up an honorary Echo award in the pop field.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs by Yello on radio countdowns
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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