By: Bryson Davis

Denver may be better known outside Colorado for mountains, altitude, and an outdoor culture than for glossy pop-rock, but the city has quietly produced musicians capable of carrying a distinctly Colorado sensibility far beyond the Front Range. Two acts at very different points on that spectrum, ARGYRO and The Fray, illustrate how broad that musical identity can be.

One is an independent multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, and actor building a cinematic body of work largely on his own terms. The other is a Denver-born band whose songs became part of the soundtrack of 2000s American pop culture and which, more than two decades after forming, is writing a new chapter.

What connects them is less a specific sound than a sense of place, melody and storytelling.

Scott Argiro, who records as ARGYRO, is originally from Pittsburgh but has made Colorado his home for years. In a 2024 interview, Argiro said he had been living in Denver for eight years and had worked with numerous musicians in the local scene before developing his solo work. A drummer by origin, he expanded into bass, piano, vocals, and songwriting, eventually becoming the multi-instrumentalist at the center of his own recordings.

His latest album, Glitterati, released through MTS Records in October 2025, contains nine tracks, including “Glitterati,” “Cool Shades,” “She’s So LA,” “The Phenomenon,” “House Upon the Mountainside,” “Perfect Endings” and “Lifeline.”

It is an album fascinated by image and authenticity: celebrity, romantic fantasy, ambition and the sometimes ridiculous lengths people go to in order to be noticed. Yet one of its most appealing songs emerged about as far from the red carpet as possible.

“Cool Shades” began while Argiro was hiking in Colorado. A bass line and melody came to him on the trail, and he stopped to record the idea on his phone before later developing it in his studio. That outdoor genesis helps explain the song’s spacious character. Instead of chasing spectacle, “Cool Shades” settles into an atmospheric pop-rock groove built around escape, water, sunlight, and the luxury of slowing down.

That relationship between Colorado landscape and creativity offers an interesting counterpoint to The Fray.

The Fray’s Denver story began in 2002, when former schoolmates Isaac Slade and Joe King reconnected and started making music together. The band’s local following grew, “Over My Head (Cable Car)” gained radio traction, and the group was named Best New Band by Westword in 2004 before breaking nationally.

Then came How to Save a Life.

Released in 2005, the album produced two songs that became inseparable from mid-2000s pop-rock: “Over My Head (Cable Car)” and “How to Save a Life.” The latter reached No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100, while “Over My Head” peaked at No. 8. Television helped propel the songs further into the culture, particularly the use of “How to Save a Life” on Grey’s Anatomy.

The Fray subsequently demonstrated that the breakthrough wasn’t a one-record accident. Their self-titled 2009 album reached No. 1 on the Billboard 200.

The band’s story has changed considerably since then. Original frontman Isaac Slade departed in 2022, with co-founder Joe King moving into the lead-vocal role alongside longtime members Dave Welsh and Ben Wysocki. After returning with The Fray Is Back EP in 2024, the group released the full-length A Light That Waits in 2026, their first album in more than a decade.

That makes the comparison with ARGYRO particularly timely.

The Fray represents one version of the Denver musician’s trajectory: songs created within a local scene that eventually become international pop-rock standards. ARGYRO represents another: the modern independent artist using Denver as a creative home base while combining recording, acting, visual storytelling, and self-directed artistic development.

Their music isn’t interchangeable. It shouldn’t be.

The Fray built its reputation on emotionally direct songwriting, piano-centered melodies and choruses capable of expanding intimate subjects to arena scale. ARGYRO’s Glitterati is more playful and cinematic, moving between satire, romance, introspection and carefully constructed pop-rock atmosphere.

But both understand something fundamental about melodic music: emotional accessibility doesn’t require artistic anonymity.

There is also a revealing Colorado thread running through their work. The Fray began by earning an audience locally before the rest of the country paid attention. ARGYRO has described Colorado itself as part of his creative process, with hikes becoming opportunities for melodies to emerge rather than simply recreation. Denver is therefore more than an address in either story. It is part of the environment in which the music developed.

And in 2026, both stories are still moving.

The Fray is navigating the difficult transformation from a band identified with enormous songs from an earlier era into an active contemporary group making new music. ARGYRO, meanwhile, is using Glitterati and songs such as “Cool Shades” to continue defining what his own version of independent pop-rock looks like.

Two careers. Two scales. Two very different paths through the music business.

But taken together, ARGYRO and The Fray make a convincing case that Denver’s contribution to pop-rock isn’t confined to one era, or one kind of artist.

Sometimes it begins with a band trying to get a local radio station to play its song.

Sometimes it begins with a musician stopping halfway through a Colorado hike because a bass line just entered his head.

The important part is knowing when to listen.