Artist · chart history · #112 in alternative artist polls · #759 in indie & aaa artist polls
Bauhaus
Band Northampton United Kingdom Active 1978–2008 UK gothic rock band
Bauhaus formed in 1978 in Northampton, United Kingdom and was active until 2008. Bauhaus has 98 chart appearances on 60 radio countdowns from 16 stations on RockLists, spanning 1982–2026. The most successful song on radio countdowns is “Bela Lugosi's Dead”, which appears on 48 lists with a best position of #3. The station that charted Bauhaus most often is Fred (XM 44) (XM Satellite Radio (national)), with 26 appearances. The artist’s biggest year on year-end countdowns was 1982.
Bauhaus crept out of Northampton in 1978 under the name Bauhaus 1919, a nod to the year the German art school opened its doors, and trimmed it to Bauhaus within a year. Peter Murphy sang, Daniel Ash played guitar and saxophone, David J played bass and Kevin Haskins played drums, and between them they made a noise as black as their image: gloomy, cavernous rock that borrowed from dub, glam, psychedelia and funk and made all of it sound like it had been dug up at midnight.
The first single, "Bela Lugosi's Dead", in 1979, is a slow crawl of creeping bass, clattering percussion and Murphy intoning over the top like a vampire at a wake, and it pointed the way to everything gothic rock would become. "Dark Entries" followed that year, and the 1980 debut album In the Flat Field, with "Stigmata Martyr", ranks among the first goth records full stop. Mask, in 1981, opened the doors wider, bringing in keyboards, sax, acoustic guitar and funky rhythms, with "Hair of the Dog" and "Of Lillies and Remains" among its tracks.
The Sky's Gone Out took them up to number three on the UK Albums Chart in 1982, with "Third Uncle" and "Silent Hedges" on it, and their stomping cover of David Bowie's "Ziggy Stardust" won them a spot on Top of the Pops. But during the sessions for the next record Murphy fell ill and spent long stretches away from the studio, the others had to cover for him, and a rift opened up. The band split on 5 July 1983, a week before Burning From the Inside, with the single "She's in Parties", came out. It was their last album of all-new songs for a quarter of a century.
Afterwards Murphy formed Dalis Car with Mick Karn and then went solo, while Ash and Haskins started Tones on Tail and later teamed up with David J again as Love and Rockets, and both did better in America than Bauhaus ever had. Bauhaus reunited for a tour in 1998, again from 2005 to 2008, and once more in 2019 and 2022.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs by Bauhaus on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Peak year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bela Lugosi's Dead | 48 | #3 | – | – | |
| 2 | She's In Parties | 10 | #246 | – | – | |
| 3 | Ziggy Stardust | 7 | #14 | – | 1982 | |
| 4 | Telegram Sam | 4 | #137 | – | – | |
| 5 | Third Uncle | 3 | #46 | – | 1982 | |
| 6 | Kick in the Eye | 3 | #521 | – | – | |
| 7 | Dark Entries | 2 | #292 | – | – | |
| 8 | Silent Hedges | 2 | #1075 | – | – | |
| 9 | of Lillies and Remains | 1 | #1000 | – | – | |
| 10 | Hair of the dog | 1 | #1177 | – | – | |
| 11 | Stigmata Martyr | 2 | #1463 | – | – | |
| 12 | In the Flat Field | 1 | #1282 | – | – | |
| 13 | Spirit In The Sky | 1 | #572 | – | – | |
| 14 | Kingdom's Coming | 1 | #1585 | – | – | |
| 15 | Satori | 1 | #1688 | – | – | |
| 16 | Crowds | 1 | #862 | – | – | |
| 17 | Double Dare | 2 | #1810 | – | – | |
| 18 | Burning from the Inside | 1 | #1746 | – | – | |
| 19 | Slice of life | 1 | #1997 | – | – | |
| 20 | St. Vitus Dance | 1 | #2005 | – | – |
Albums with charting songs
Where each song was first released, from MusicBrainz.
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