Album · Oingo Boingo
Dark at the End of the Tunnel by Oingo Boingo
Dark at the End of the Tunnel is an album by Oingo Boingo, released in 1990. 3 songs from it have charted on rock radio countdowns, with 5 countdown appearances in total. The biggest is “Skin”, on 3 lists with a best position of #49.
Oingo Boingo's seventh album, Dark at the End of the Tunnel, came out on MCA in 1990, and by then Danny Elfman was leading a double life as a big-name film composer, working hand in glove with Tim Burton. He produced this one himself, and it finds the band trading its old jittery rush for smoother, more straight-ahead pop and lyrics that reach for hope. A couple of songs had already done time in the movies: "Try to Believe", which closes the record, surfaced as an instrumental in Midnight Run, and "Flesh 'N Blood" turned up on the Ghostbusters II soundtrack.
The old gang is still here: Steve Bartek on guitar, John Avila on bass, Johnny "Vatos" Hernandez on drums, Carl Graves on keys and the horns of Leon Schneiderman, Sam "Sluggo" Phipps and Dale Turner. "Out of Control" was Elfman's answer to letters from fans thinking about suicide, while "The Long Breakdown" rides a Western lope toward a vision of death that he rated the bleakest thing he'd ever written.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs from Dark at the End of the Tunnel on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Years |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Skin | 3 | #49 | – | 1990–2003 | |
| 2 | Out of Control | 1 | #28 | – | 1990 | |
| 3 | When the Lights Go Out | 1 | #88 | – | 1990 |
Only songs that appear on at least one countdown are listed. Release data from MusicBrainz.