Album · Hoodoo Gurus
Mars Needs Guitars! by Hoodoo Gurus
Mars Needs Guitars! is an album by Hoodoo Gurus, released in 1985. 4 songs from it have charted on rock radio countdowns, with 20 countdown appearances in total. The biggest is “Bittersweet”, on 16 lists with a best position of #58.
Mars Needs Guitars!, the Hoodoo Gurus' second album, landed on 8 March 1985 on Big Time, its title a nod to the 1967 sci-fi flick Mars Needs Women, and it caught the Sydney band on the way up. They came into the sessions with a new drummer, Mark Kingsmill, whose explosive playing Dave Faulkner later said changed their lives, and you can hear it: these songs kick hard.
Faulkner wrote and sang every track except the title song, which all five Gurus wrote together and Brad Shepherd sang. The sound is '60s garage and power pop given a hard-rock jolt, with a streak of trashy psychedelic kitsch, and the singles came thick and fast: "Bittersweet", "Like Wow – Wipeout", "Death Defying" and "Poison Pen". In America, where the band had been touring since 1984, the album reached 140 on the Billboard 200 in 1986.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs from Mars Needs Guitars! on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Years |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bittersweet | 16 | #58 | – | 1985–2023 | |
| 2 | Death Defying | 2 | #194 | – | 2002–2003 | |
| 3 | Poison Pen | 1 | #1179 | – | 2003 | |
| 4 | Like Wow-Wipeout | 1 | #1998 | – | 2003 |
Only songs that appear on at least one countdown are listed. Release data from MusicBrainz.