Artist · chart history
Blue Murder
Band Los Angeles United Kingdom Active 1988–1994 heavy metal group
Blue Murder formed in 1988 in Los Angeles, United Kingdom and was active until 1994. Blue Murder has 2 chart appearances on 1 radio countdown from 1 station on RockLists, spanning 1990. The most successful song on radio countdowns is “Jelly Roll”, which appears on 1 list with a best position of #574. The station that charted Blue Murder most often is Z-Rock (United States (syndicated network)), with 2 appearances.
Blue Murder was the band John Sykes built after he got fired from Whitesnake, and it had the swagger of a man with a point to prove. Sykes sang and played guitar, and he filled out the lineup with bassist Tony Franklin and drummer Carmine Appice, after early spells with singer Ray Gillen and drummer Cozy Powell.
Their 1989 debut on Geffen is big, bluesy, fire-breathing hard rock, Sykes's guitar roaring over a rhythm section that hit like a landslide. It made the Billboard 200 and gave them a minor hit in "Jelly Roll", a grinding, sleazy groove, while "Valley of the Kings" goes for something more epic and exotic. For all that, it turned out to be a money loser for the band and the label alike.
Then grunge arrived and blew their kind of rock out of the charts. The follow-up crawled along, Franklin and Appice walked, and Sykes put together a new band for Nothin' But Trouble in 1993, which charted only in Japan. A live album came the next year, Geffen dropped them and that was it. Reunion talk came and went for years until Sykes died in 2024, but the debut has kept a small, devoted cult following.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs by Blue Murder on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Peak year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jelly Roll | 1 | #574 | – | – | |
| 2 | Valley of the Kings | 1 | #852 | – | – |
Albums with charting songs
Where each song was first released, from MusicBrainz.
Every countdown appearance
| Year | # | Song | Countdown |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1990 | 574 | Jelly Roll | Z-Rock Top 1001 Songs of All-Time (1990) |
| 1990 | 852 | Valley of the Kings | Z-Rock Top 1001 Songs of All-Time (1990) |
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