Artist · chart history · #509 in indie & aaa artist polls
Broken Social Scene
Band Toronto Canada Formed 1999
Broken Social Scene formed in 1999 in Toronto, Canada. Broken Social Scene has 30 chart appearances on 28 radio countdowns from 13 stations on RockLists, spanning 2003–2026. The most successful song on radio countdowns is “Anthem For a Seventeen Year-Old Girl”, which appears on 5 lists with a best position of #314. The station that charted Broken Social Scene most often is CFNY 102.1 The Edge (Toronto, ON), with 5 appearances. The artist’s biggest year on year-end countdowns was 2010.
Broken Social Scene is less a band than a Toronto scene with a mailing address. Kevin Drew and Brendan Canning started it in 1999, and around them gathered a floating cast that could run from a handful of players to a small orchestra: drummer Justin Peroff, guitarists Andrew Whiteman and Charles Spearin, horn players and string players, and a lineup of singers, Leslie Feist, Emily Haines, Amy Millan, Lisa Lobsinger and Ariel Engle, who also led bands and careers of their own, among them Metric, Stars and Feist.
After the low-key Feel Good Lost, You Forgot It in People landed on Arts & Crafts in 2002 and blew the doors off indie rock. It's a joyous, sprawling mess in the best possible way, with guitars, horns, woodwinds and violins piled up in odd song shapes: the stomping "Stars & Sons", the rush of "Cause=Time". The hushed, hypnotic "Anthems for a Seventeen Year-Old Girl" is one of their loveliest moments. David Newfeld's production keeps everything on the edge of chaos, and he stayed on for the self-titled follow-up, home of the propulsive "7/4 (Shoreline)". Forgiveness Rock Record in 2010 brought "Forced to Love".
Hug of Thunder in 2017 and Remember the Humans in 2026 have kept the collective alive, and their story has been told in a book, This Book Is Broken, and on film in This Movie Is Broken and It's All Gonna Break.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs by Broken Social Scene on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Peak year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Anthem For a Seventeen Year-Old Girl | 5 | #314 | – | – | |
| 2 | 7/4 (Shoreline) | 6 | #34 | – | 2006 | |
| 3 | Can't Find My Heart | 2 | #16 | – | 2019 | |
| 4 | World Sick | 2 | #23 | – | 2010 | |
| 5 | Halfway Home | 3 | #77 | – | 2017 | |
| 6 | Forced to Love | 1 | #41 | – | 2010 | |
| 7 | Sentimental X's | 1 | #401 | – | – | |
| 8 | Skyline | 1 | #476 | – | – | |
| 9 | Meet Me In The Basement | 1 | #91 | – | 2013 | |
| 10 | Boyfriends | 1 | #46 | – | 2020 | |
| 11 | Anthems for a 17 Year Old Girl | 1 | #450 | – | – | |
| 12 | Stars & Sons | 1 | #77 | – | 2003 | |
| 13 | Cause=Time | 2 | #82 | – | 2004 | |
| 14 | Late Nineties Bedroom Rock for the Missionaries | 1 | #715 | – | – | |
| 15 | Hug of Thunder | 1 | #84 | – | 2017 |
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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