Album · The Teardrop Explodes
Kilimanjaro by The Teardrop Explodes
Kilimanjaro is an album by The Teardrop Explodes, released in 1980. 3 songs from it have charted on rock radio countdowns, with 5 countdown appearances in total. The biggest is “Poppies In the Field”, on 1 list with a best position of #541.
Kilimanjaro, the debut album from Liverpool's the Teardrop Explodes, came out on Fontana on 10 October 1980, with Clive Langer producing. It's the band's early, lightly psychedelic guitar-pop at its most giddy, the so-called "bubblegum trance" sound: vintage beat-group jangle souped up with post-punk nerve and Julian Cope's wide-eyed yelp.
It gathers new versions of the early singles "Sleeping Gas", "Bouncing Babies", "Treason" and "When I Dream", and later reissues tacked on their biggest hit, "Reward". "Books" dates back to Cope's earlier band the Crucial Three, and Echo & the Bunnymen cut their own take as "Read It in Books". The working title was the cheeky Everyone Wants to Shag the Teardrop Explodes. The first sleeve showed a shadowy band photo; the 1981 reissue swapped in zebras in front of the mountain itself. Q later placed it at number 95 among the greatest British albums ever.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs from Kilimanjaro on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Years |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Poppies In the Field | 1 | #541 | – | 2003 | |
| 2 | When I Dream | 2 | #829 | – | 2003–2021 | |
| 3 | Treason | 2 | #43 | – | 1980–2003 |
Only songs that appear on at least one countdown are listed. Release data from MusicBrainz.