Artist · chart history
Aqualung
Solo artist Southampton United Kingdom English songwriter, musician & record producer Matt Hales
Aqualung is an artist from Southampton. Aqualung has 15 chart appearances on 15 radio countdowns from 11 stations on RockLists, spanning 2005–2026. The most successful song on radio countdowns is “Brighter Than Sunshine”, which appears on 11 lists with a best position of #52. The station that charted Aqualung most often is WBER (Rochester, NY), with 3 appearances. The artist’s biggest year on year-end countdowns was 2005.
Aqualung is really one man: Matthew Hales, an English singer, songwriter, pianist and producer from Southampton, born in 1972, who has worked under that name since the early 2000s. He got his break the modern way, when "Strange and Beautiful" was used in a 2002 Volkswagen Beetle commercial, and the song later climbed into the UK top 10.
Still Life came in 2003, and "Brighter Than Sunshine" is the song from it that crossed the Atlantic: a sunburst of a tune, all rolling piano and a chorus that lifts right off the ground, which picked up plenty of American airplay and turned up in the film A Lot Like Love. Hales builds his music around the piano and a soft, aching voice, closer to a hushed confession than a rock anthem.
He has released seven albums as Aqualung, the latest being Dead Letters in 2022, and he writes and produces for others too, working with Lianne La Havas, Bat for Lashes, the Fray, Jason Mraz, Sara Bareilles, Paloma Faith and Disclosure among many more. His work has earned 2 Grammy nominations and 3 Ivor Novello nominations.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs by Aqualung on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Peak year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Brighter Than Sunshine | 11 | #52 | – | 2006 | |
| 2 | Strange And Beautiful | 1 | #19 | – | 2005 | |
| 3 | Fingertip | 1 | #59 | – | 2010 | |
| 4 | Pressure Suit | 2 | #98 | – | 2007 |
Albums with charting songs
Where each song was first released, from MusicBrainz.
Year-end chart timeline
Combined year-end countdown points per year. Taller bars mean more songs placing higher across more stations.
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