Artist · chart history
Big Black
Band Evanston United States Active 1981–1987 US punk / alternative rock band
Big Black formed in 1981 in Evanston, United States and was active until 1987. Big Black has 3 chart appearances on 2 radio countdowns from 2 stations on RockLists, spanning 1987–2019. The most successful song on radio countdowns is “Colombian Necktie”, which appears on 1 list with a best position of #18. The station that charted Big Black most often is John Peel (BBC Radio 1), with 2 appearances. The artist’s biggest year on year-end countdowns was 1987.
Big Black came roaring out of Evanston, Illinois, and from 1981 to 1987 they made the ugliest, most thrilling racket in the American underground. It started as Steve Albini's solo project before it grew into a trio, with Santiago Durango on guitar and Jeff Pezzati on bass, both borrowed from Naked Raygun. Dave Riley took over the bass from Pezzati in 1985 and stayed for both of the full-length albums.
The sound is the thing: guitars that clang and scrape like sheet metal being torn off a roof, and in place of a drummer, a drum machine hammering away with inhuman precision. It points straight at where industrial rock was headed. Atomizer in 1986 gave us "Kerosene", a grinding, relentless monster of a song; Songs About Fucking in 1987 brought "L Dopa" and "Colombian Necktie", tighter and meaner still. Albini's lyrics stare straight at the worst things people do to each other, murder and abuse and racism among them, not to celebrate any of it but to hold it up and make you look.
They were just as uncompromising about the business. Big Black set up their own tours, footed the bill for every session, signed no contracts and stayed on independent labels from start to finish, and that stubbornness shaped how a whole generation of underground bands thought about running their own affairs. Touch and Go kept most of the catalog in print for years after they called it quits.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs by Big Black on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Peak year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Colombian Necktie | 1 | #18 | – | 1987 | |
| 2 | Kerosene | 1 | #366 | – | – | |
| 3 | L Dopa | 1 | #42 | – | 1987 |
Albums with charting songs
Where each song was first released, from MusicBrainz.
Every countdown appearance
| Year | # | Song | Countdown |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 366 | Kerosene | KEXP Listeners' Favorite Songs of All Time |
| 1987 | 18 | Colombian Necktie | John Peel's Festive Fifty of 1987 |
| 1987 | 42 | L Dopa | John Peel's Festive Fifty of 1987 |
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