Artist · chart history · #160 in alternative artist polls · #230 in indie & aaa artist polls
Chris Isaak
Solo artist Stockton United States
Chris Isaak is an artist from Stockton. Chris Isaak has 164 chart appearances on 81 radio countdowns from 26 stations on RockLists, spanning 1987–2026. The most successful song on radio countdowns is “Wicked Game”, which appears on 57 lists with a best position of #7. The station that charted Chris Isaak most often is CD101 (Columbus, OH), with 88 appearances. The artist’s biggest year on year-end countdowns was 1990.
Chris Isaak was born in Stockton, California, in 1956, and he sounds like he stepped out of a jukebox from another era. His style is rockabilly revival bathed in reverb, and his voice has a range wide enough to croon low and soar high. Critics often hold him up against Roy Orbison, Elvis Presley, Ricky Nelson and Duane Eddy.
His self-titled 1986 album on Warner Bros. Records gave us "You Owe Me Some Kind of Love", "Heart Full of Soul" and "Blue Hotel", a lonesome, echo-drenched ballad that became an international hit. He sings and plays guitar, and on the road he has worked extensively with his band, Silvertone.
Heart Shaped World in 1989 delivered his breakthrough and signature song, "Wicked Game": dreamy, haunting and sultry, with a slow, shivering guitar line and a vocal that sounds like it's floating out of a desert motel at 3 in the morning. Director David Lynch, who has used Isaak's music in many of his films, helped give his sound a cinematic life beyond the radio, and "Don't Make Me Dream About You" and the title track rounded out the record.
San Francisco Days in 1993 brought "Can't Do a Thing (to Stop Me)", "Solitary Man" and "Round 'n Round", and Forever Blue in 1995 added "Somebody's Crying" and the slinky "Baby Did a Bad Bad Thing", both international hits. He has made 13 studio albums in a career spanning four decades. Isaak also turned up as an actor, starring as Chester Desmond in Lynch's Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, taking smaller roles in Married to the Mob, The Silence of the Lambs, Little Buddha and That Thing You Do!, and fronting two TV series, The Chris Isaak Show and The Chris Isaak Hour. On rock radio's countdowns, "Wicked Game" still casts its spell.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs by Chris Isaak on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Peak year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Wicked Game | 57 | #7 | – | 1990 | |
| 2 | Somebody's Crying | 19 | #39 | – | 1995 | |
| 3 | Can't Do A Thing To Stop Me | 14 | #468 | – | – | |
| 4 | Don't Make Me Dream About You | 7 | #427 | – | – | |
| 5 | Heart Full of Soul | 7 | #679 | – | – | |
| 6 | You Owe Me Some Kind of Love | 9 | #18 | – | 1987 | |
| 7 | Solitary Man | 7 | #689 | – | – | |
| 8 | Heart Shaped World | 7 | #771 | – | – | |
| 9 | Round 'N Round | 7 | #1039 | – | – | |
| 10 | Baby Did a Bad Bad Thing | 9 | #67 | – | 1995 | |
| 11 | We Let Her Down | 6 | #29 | – | 2009 | |
| 12 | Blue Hotel | 2 | #141 | – | – | |
| 13 | Please Don't Call | 1 | #31 | – | 2016 | |
| 14 | San Francisco Days | 2 | #65 | – | 1993 | |
| 15 | Go Walking Down There | 2 | #89 | – | 1995 | |
| 16 | Dancin' | 1 | #677 | – | – | |
| 17 | Cheater's Town | 1 | #75 | – | 2009 | |
| 18 | Suspicion of Love | 1 | #92 | – | 1988 | |
| 19 | Let Me Down Easy | 2 | #30 | – | 2002 | |
| 20 | Live It Up | 1 | #95 | – | 2011 |
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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