The Fray - Albums & Singles Collection 2003-2014 (9CD)

×

The Fray - Albums & Singles Collection 2003-2014 (9CD)

Close

By pitching their music somewhere between the arena-friendly style of U2 and the mature pop/rock of bands like Maroon 5 and Counting Crows, the Fray rose to commercial prominence with their 2005 debut, How to Save a Life. The Denver-based band had formed three years prior, when former schoolmates Isaac Slade (vocals, piano) and Joe King (guitar, vocals) unexpectedly bumped into each other at a local music store. The pair began a series of two-man jam sessions and soon expanded their lineup with two of Slade's former bandmates, drummer Ben Wysocki and guitarist David Welsh. Slade's younger brother, Caleb, also joined the band for a stint but was ultimately asked to leave; the resulting rift between the two siblings would later inspire the band's first hit single, "Over My Head (Cable Car)." After issuing the Movement EP in 2002, the quartet gained the support of Denver's KTCL radio station with a follow-up release, 2003's Reason EP. As the Fray's airplay increased alongside their local profile (Westword, a Denver alternative weekly publication, deemed them Best New Band in 2004), they began attracting attention from Epic Records. The label ultimately signed the band in December 2004, and the Fray toured alongside Weezer and Ben Folds the following summer.

How to Save a Life was released in September 2005, and "Over My Head (Cable Car)" found a quick home on modern rock radio. By early 2006, it had crossed over to Top 40 chart status, peaking at number eight and whetting the public's appetite for another hit. The Fray responded by releasing the album's title track, which was heavily used in a promotional campaign for the TV series Grey's Anatomy and quickly became one of 2006's biggest singles. "How to Save a Life" was a worldwide smash, reaching the Top Ten in the U.S. (where it continued to chart for 58 consecutive weeks) and peaking at number one in Bulgaria, Ireland, Canada, and Spain. By the time the smoke had cleared, the Fray's debut had been certified double-platinum in the U.S. and was declared the best-selling digital album of all time.

As How to Save a Life continued to enjoy worldwide chart success, the live album Live at the Electric Factory was released in selected independent stores in July 2006. The Fray re-released their Reason EP the following year while continuing to tour, occasionally playing new material at their high-profile shows. The band also found time to return to the recording studio, and 2009 saw the release of their self-titled sophomore effort, The Fray. The Fray’s third studio outing was produced by Brendan O'Brien and was inspired by the group's trips to Rwanda and Germany. The resulting Scars and Stories, which was named after an unused B-side, was preceded by the single "Heartbeat" and released on February 7, 2012. At the end of the year frontman Isaac Slade confirmed the band was starting work on its fourth record in 2013, and the Fray subsequently headed into the studio with producer Stuart Price (The Killers, Madonna, Keane). Titled Helios, the album was issued in February 2014 and was preceded by the upbeat single "Love Don't Die."

Biography by Andrew Leahey, Allmusic.com

×

The Fray - Albums & Singles Collection 2003-2014 (9CD)

Close

×

The Fray - Albums & Singles Collection 2003-2014 (9CD)

Close

After making their debut in September 2005, the Fray toured for upwards of two years in support of the platinum-selling How to Save a Life. The album's title song enjoyed a long residency on the charts – 58 consecutive weeks, to be exact – and, like many young megastars, the Fray found themselves in an unsavory position. Retiring to the studio to work on a sophomore release would effectively kill the buzz of their first record, while continuing to tour would leave the band little time to work on new material. Accordingly, the Fray turned to the time-honored tradition of stopgap releases, issuing a live album in 2006, and re-releasing the Reason EP the following year. While the live record was a progressive release that showed the band's growth, Reason EP (which was originally cut in 2003) is a step backward, as its seven tracks portray a band whose commercial skills have yet to fully develop. The music is pleasant enough, with moodswinging melodies and tasteful piano fashioning some fine, middle-of-the-road pop/rock tunes. But there's nothing like "Over My Head (Cable Car)" or "How to Save a Life," both of which were relentlessly fine-tuned for airplay on the band's subsequent release. The Fray were still molding their sound in 2003, and while Reason EP certainly hints at what's to come, the disc is still an archival release for Fray purists only. Regular fans would do better to pick up Live at the Electric Factory: Bootleg No. 1, which includes a stirring version of one of Reason's best tracks, the Coldplay-styled "Vienna."

Review by Andrew Leahey, Allmusic.com

×

The Fray - Albums & Singles Collection 2003-2014 (9CD)

Close

The Fray was among the first flood of bands that combined the influence of British neo-stadium acts like Coldplay and Keane, the retro-AOR bands of the mid-'90s – chief among them Counting Crows and the Wallflowers – and American emo-pop bands like Something Corporate and Jimmy Eat World. The Denver four-piece has the requisite piano and flag-waving choruses of the Brits, the slick sound and unfailing conservatism of the aforementioned AOR bands, and the over-emoted vocals and confessional nature that are cornerstones of emo. What they don't have is much originality. All the songs on their debut, How to Save a Life, sound almost exactly alike and also exactly like you would expect – sincere, melodic, authentic, and bereft of anything surprising or exciting. This doesn't make for the kind of record that people will want to listen to over and over again but for modern rock, it isn't half-bad. The Fray try hard and they never really do anything offensive. A couple of songs, like "Over My Head (Cable Car)" and "Dead Wrong," might even sound good in the background of a WB teen drama. You just can't picture them giving anyone chills, or kids text-messaging their friends to tell them about this great new band they just heard. That kind of reaction comes from inspiration and excitement, two vital factors that How to Save a Life and the Fray themselves are sorely lacking.

Review by Tim Sendra, Allmusic.com

×

The Fray - Albums & Singles Collection 2003-2014 (9CD)

Close

Live at the Electric Factory is the first live CD by The Fray, available on iTunes as well as at select indie stores. It was recorded at the Electric Factory in Philadelphia and released on July 18, 2006.

×

The Fray - Albums & Singles Collection 2003-2014 (9CD)

Close

"Over My Head (Cable Car)" (originally performed as "Cable Car") is a song by American rock band The Fray. It is included on their on their debut album How to Save a Life (2005) and was the debut single from the album and hit the top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The single helped propel their album from the Top Heatseekers chart to the top 20 of The Billboard 200 chart. The single is available exclusively as a digital download. Some CD singles of the song were given out to attendees of a concert on December 17, 2005. The CD single was backed with "Heaven Forbid" and a live version of "Hundred". In the UK, "Over My Head (Cable Car)" was released as the second single from the album, following "How to Save a Life".

The song sold over 2 million digital downloads in the United States and was certified double platinum by the RIAA in May 2006. The song was the fifth most-downloaded single of 2006 and was ranked #13 on the Hot 100 singles of 2006 by Billboard. It was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals in 2007. It lost to My Humps by The Black Eyed Peas.

The song was ranked #43 on Billboard's Best Adult Pop Songs of the Decade list and #100 on Billboard's Top 100 Digital Tracks of the Decade list.

×

The Fray - Albums & Singles Collection 2003-2014 (9CD)

Close

"How to Save a Life" is a song by The Fray. It is the title track from their debut album and was released as the second single from it. The song is one of their most popular airplay songs and peaked in the top 3 of the Billboard Hot 100 chart in the United States. It became the joint seventh longest charting single on the Billboard Hot 100, tying with Santana's "Smooth" (1999), at 58 consecutive weeks. The song has sold over 3,703,000 downloads, and has been certified 3x Platinum by the RIAA. It is the band's highest-charting song to date, topping the Adult Top 40 chart for 15 consecutive weeks and topping the Canadian Airplay Chart. It was also nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal in 2007. It lost to "Dani California" by Red Hot Chili Peppers.

×

The Fray - Albums & Singles Collection 2003-2014 (9CD)

Close

"You Found Me" is the first single by Denver-based piano rock band The Fray from their eponymous second studio album. Live performances of the song from concerts in Europe surfaced on YouTube in late 2007, when the song was titled "Amistad". The band began streaming the song on their website on November 21, 2008. The single was digitally released in the U.S., Canadian, UK, Australian and French iTunes Stores and had a physical release later on. The song became the group's third single to sell 2,000,000 downloads in the United States, after "How to Save a Life" and "Over My Head (Cable Car)". The single was certified double platinum by the RIAA and the ARIA in 2009.

×

The Fray - Albums & Singles Collection 2003-2014 (9CD)

Close

The Fray's second album picks up where How to Save a Life left off, revisiting the same blend of piano-led balladry and midtempo pop/rock that helped establish the band in 2005. International tours and platinum-selling singles may have turned the Fray into superstars, but the actual songwriting remains unchanged, with songs like "You Found Me" and "Enough for Now" sounding quite similar to their predecessors. Those parallels are strengthened by producers Aaron Johnson and Mike Flynn, both of whom helped record How to Save a Life and repeat the job here to predictable effect. What's different, then, is the occasional "widening" of the Fray's sound; the rock numbers are slightly louder (culminating in a percussive, distorted breakdown during "We Build Then We Break") and the ballads somewhat softer, with "Ungodly Hour" standing out as the sparsest of the bunch. The band sounds uncomfortable with either extreme, though, either overshooting the rockers or reducing the ballads to little more than Isaac Slade's zealous vocals, which are often so garbled by his angsty, passionate delivery that they might as well be caricaturing the American accent. Like the rest of his bandmates, Slade is most comfortable in the middle, where the Fray comfortably churns out the album's best numbers: the minor-keyed "Absolute"; "Syndicate" (whose guitar riff in 6/4 time is perhaps the disc's only quirky moment); and the platinum-selling single "You Found Me." It's testament to the band's appeal that "You Found Me" became a Top Ten single before this album was even released, but that probably speaks to its familiarity – this is, after all, the equivalent of How to Save a Life, Pt. 2 – rather than any originality.

Review by Andrew Leahey, Allmusic.com

×

The Fray - Albums & Singles Collection 2003-2014 (9CD)

Close

Upgrading to Brendan O'Brien, the producer who came to fame via his work with Stone Temple Pilots and Pearl Jam, the Fray have never sounded better on record than they do on their third album, Scars & Stories. It's not that they've changed their template – they still rely on a chilly, atmospheric blend of Coldplay's balladeering and Rob Thomas' rock, tempered by a dash of the urgency of 3 Doors Down – but O'Brien helps them articulate their ideas, giving them definition and muscle, attributes that are appealing when the songs lack distinct hooks. Certainly, this shimmering, assured pulse assists the Fray whenever they don't have a song as compelling as "How to Save a Life," and if they rely a little bit too heavily on O'Brien's incomparable skills, it is a maneuver that means Scars & Stories will satisfy most Fray fans.

Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine, Allmusic.com

×

The Fray - Albums & Singles Collection 2003-2014 (9CD)

Close

Released in 2012, Scars & Stories saw The Fray expanding on the size and scope of their signature blend of American trad rock-meets-'90s alt-pop with the aid of Pearl Jam and Bruce Springsteen producer Brendan O'Brien. For 2014's Helios, the band enlisted help from Stuart Price (The Killers, Madonna), and his electronic flourishes serve as the driving force behind their fourth long-player. Helios begins innocuously enough with "Hold My Hand," a straight-up, anthem generator-spawned arm-waver that pairs a safe, circular, entirely familiar chord progression with a melody that returns the favor (a description that applies to most if not all of the ten songs that follow), before unleashing the album's first single, "Love Don't Die," a digitized boot-stomper that leans hard on the Kings of Leon/Black Keys side of the Fray spectrum. Flirtations with disco ("Give It Away") and pure Killers-cloned electro-pop ("Hurricane") follow, but The Fray never sound as comfortable as they do when they're dishing out relatively generic yet undeniably impassioned slabs of Springsteen, Train, Goo Goo Dolls, and Coldplay-inspired, open-highway treacle like "Our Last Days" and "Wherever This Goes." Even the middling power ballad "Break Your Plans" and the easy and convivial "Wherever This Goes," the latter a slick mash-up of The Lumineers "Ho Hey" and something off of Fleetwood Mac's Tusk, outshine Helios' more experimental (sonically speaking) moments, due in large part to the fact that they sound like the work of a band, and not a band working way too hard to sound relevant.

James Christopher Monger, Allmusic.com