Latest Release
- NOV 1, 2024
- 3 Songs
- Torches · 2010
- Sacred Hearts Club · 2017
- Torches · 2011
- Paradise State of Mind · 2005
- Torches · 2011
- Supermodel · 2014
- Supermodel · 2014
- Imagination - Single · 2019
- Torches · 2011
- Paradise State of Mind · 2024
Essential Albums
- Foster the People have touches of California sunbaked pop in their repertoire, but there’s also a dark Euro-disco groove lurking under the hooks of “Don’t Stop (Color On the Walls)” and the thick, goth-like wash of “Waste.” Singer Mark Foster plays and programs enough keyboards to give the songs a grand entrance, while other members contribute to the production to jazz up and space out tracks like “Miss You” and “Life On the Nickel.” “Warrant” works under an ambient haze. “Houdini” charges with an unforgiving groove, squeaky synths and a falsetto that reaches back to the ‘70s disco era.
- 2024
- 2020
- 2019
- 2019
Artist Playlists
- Punchy alt-pop that wrestles with big themes.
More To Hear
- Mark Foster on Paradise State of Mind.
- The singer guests, plus a reading of LFO's "Summer Girls."
- New music from Empire of the Sun, SOHN, Liv Dawson, and more.
About Foster the People
Before he founded Foster the People in 2009, Mark Foster paid the bills by writing commercial jingles for a Los Angeles production house. Beyond giving him an invaluable education in the science of songwriting, the gig also gave him a crash course in the sleight-of-hand psychology of advertising—like how to package a song about a troubled teen shooting up his school into one of the most indelible indie-pop anthems of the 2010s. That song, “Pumped Up Kicks,” was perfectly timed for a moment when bands like MGMT and Phoenix were giving the Hot 100 a quirky hipster makeover, and its viral success online would lead to a Top 5 slot on the Billboard charts and a major-label deal. (Though perhaps the truest measure of the song’s cross-generational appeal—and Foster’s effortless way with melody—is that it yielded both a Weezer cover and an invitation for the band to perform at the Grammys alongside The Beach Boys and Maroon 5.) The subsequent debut album, Torches, proved Foster to be a multi-hit wonder, able to finesse elements of EDM (“Helena Beat”) and loopy alt-rock (“Don’t Stop [Color on the Walls]”) into instant earworms. Foster spent the next decade fusing classic pop songcraft and unsavory subjects into club-friendly cuts like 2017’s “Sit Next to Me,” a tale of pained romantic longing and shaky sobriety rendered as seductive disco-soul. As he explained to Apple Music, “Something I’ve always loved to do is make music as an escape, as a friend, as a comforter,” affirming Foster the People’s commitment to spinning dark thoughts into feel-good jams.
- ORIGIN
- Los Angeles, CA, United States
- FORMED
- October 2009
- GENRE
- Alternative