Artist · chart history · #306 in indie & aaa artist polls
Yo La Tengo
Band Hoboken Formed 1984
Yo La Tengo formed in 1984 in Hoboken. Yo La Tengo has 29 chart appearances on 20 radio countdowns from 7 stations on RockLists, spanning 2006–2026. The most successful song on radio countdowns is “Autumn Sweater”, which appears on 5 lists with a best position of #174. The station that charted Yo La Tengo most often is The Colorado Sound (Fort Collins–Denver, CO), with 9 appearances. The artist’s biggest year on year-end countdowns was 2013.
Yo La Tengo took their name from the Spanish for "I've got it", and it took them a while to get it all together. Ira Kaplan (guitar, keyboards, lead vocals) and Georgia Hubley (drums, keyboards, vocals) started the band in Hoboken, New Jersey, in 1984, with Dave Schramm on guitar early on and a parade of bass players (Dave Rick, Mike Lewis, Stephan Wichnewski, Gene Holder) passing through before James McNew arrived and made them a trio for keeps.
What they make is indie rock with a record collector's heart: hushed, fuzzy, drifting songs that can curl up like a sleeping cat or break into a squall of feedback without warning. Painful arrived in 1993, and I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One followed in 1997, with the soft ache of "Autumn Sweater" and the scrappy buzz of "Sugarcube". Summer Sun came in 2003.
They've never been anyone's idea of a mainstream act, but they've been tagged the quintessential critics' band and keep a devoted cult following, and they play other people's songs as lovingly as their own, onstage and on record. Schramm came back in 2015 and turned up on their fourteenth album, Stuff Like That There.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs by Yo La Tengo on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Peak year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Autumn Sweater | 5 | #174 | – | – | |
| 2 | Ohm | 4 | #14 | – | 2013 | |
| 3 | From A Motel 6 | 5 | #203 | – | – | |
| 4 | Periodically Double Or Triple | 2 | #45 | – | 2009 | |
| 5 | Friday I'm In Love | 1 | #173 | – | – | |
| 6 | This Stupid World | 1 | #32 | – | 2023 | |
| 7 | Tom Courtenay | 1 | #506 | – | – | |
| 8 | Sugarcube | 1 | #439 | – | – | |
| 9 | Blitzkrieg Bop | 1 | #631 | – | – | |
| 10 | Black Flowers | 1 | #696 | – | – | |
| 11 | Big Day Coming | 2 | #734 | – | – | |
| 12 | You Can Have It All | 1 | #747 | – | – | |
| 13 | For You Too | 1 | #800 | – | – | |
| 14 | Sometimes I Don't Get You | 1 | #996 | – | – | |
| 15 | Today Is The Day | 1 | #880 | – | – |
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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