“Wasteland” by 10 Years

"Wasteland" first surfaced on Killing All That Holds You, an independent release by 10 Years, before the band put it on The Autumn Effect, their major-label debut, in 2005. Jesse Hasek wrote the words and sings them, while guitarists Ryan Johnson and Matt Wantland and drummer Brian Vodinh wrote the music, with Lewis Cosby on bass and Vodinh adding backing vocals. It's a brooding, slow-coiling slab of alternative metal that lets the tension build before the guitars crash down.

Its climb was a marathon: it finally hit number one on Billboard's Modern Rock Tracks in February 2006, in its 27th week on the chart, one of the slowest rises to the top that chart has seen, and it spent ten weeks at number two on the Mainstream Rock chart. The RIAA certified it double platinum in March 2026.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.