Album · Ben Lee
Breathing Tornados by Ben Lee
Breathing Tornados is an album by Ben Lee, released in 1998. 2 songs from it have charted on rock radio countdowns, with 7 countdown appearances in total. The biggest is “Cigarettes Will Kill You”, on 4 lists with a best position of #2.
Breathing Tornados, Ben Lee's third album, came out through Modular on 16 November 1998, and the Australian who had started out at 14 in the Sydney band Noise Addict, going solo after it folded in 1995, was clearly done playing it safe. Ed Buller produced, and alongside Lee's guitar the record throws in machine beats, keyboards, horns and all manner of oddball samples, a left turn that CMJ's Wendy Mitchell heard as adventurous without giving up the hooky pop and acoustic folk he'd been known for.
"Cigarettes Will Kill You" is the tender heart of it, wide-eyed and bittersweet, and "Nothing Much Happens" shrugs along in the same wry, low-key spirit. Back home it climbed to 13 on the ARIA Albums Chart.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs from Breathing Tornados on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Years |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Cigarettes Will Kill You | 4 | #2 | – | 1998–2025 | |
| 2 | Nothing Much Happens | 3 | #81 | – | 1999–2000 |
Only songs that appear on at least one countdown are listed. Release data from MusicBrainz.