Artist · chart history
Cold Chisel
Band Adelaide Australia Formed 1973
Cold Chisel formed in 1973 in Adelaide, Australia. Cold Chisel has 9 chart appearances on 4 radio countdowns from 2 stations on RockLists, spanning 1989–2025. The most successful song on radio countdowns is “Khe Sanh”, which appears on 4 lists and was voted number one once. In total the artist has topped 1 countdown. The station that charted Cold Chisel most often is Triple M (Australia (national network)), with 5 appearances.
Cold Chisel formed in Adelaide in 1973 around Ian Moss on guitar and vocals, Don Walker on piano and keyboards, Steve Prestwich on drums and Les Kaczmarek on bass, and Jimmy Barnes soon came in to sing lead, with a throat-shredding howl that could be heard over any pub crowd. Phil Small took over the bass in 1975. What they play is pub rock at its most ferocious: rockabilly, hard rock and sweaty soul and blues welded together, with songs about working-class life that could only have come from Australia.
The self-titled 1978 debut carried "Khe Sanh", released that May, a hard-driving single that has since been ranked among the greatest Australian songs ever written, at number 8 on the APRA list in 2001. Breakfast at Sweethearts came in 1979, East in 1980 with the top-10 single "Cheap Wine", and Circus Animals in 1982, with "Bow River" and "When The War Is Over", went to number one. So did Twentieth Century, carrying "Flame Trees", which arrived after the band had split in late 1983.
They have come back together several times since, and they have piled up 6 number-one albums in all. The ARIA Hall of Fame took them in in 1993. Kaczmarek died in 2008, and Prestwich died of a brain tumour in 2011.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs by Cold Chisel on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Peak year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Khe Sanh | 4 | #1 | 1 | – | |
| 2 | Flame Trees | 2 | #7 | – | – | |
| 3 | Bow River | 1 | #16 | – | – | |
| 4 | Cheap Wine | 1 | #41 | – | – | |
| 5 | When The War Is Over | 1 | #61 | – | – |
Albums with charting songs
Where each song was first released, from MusicBrainz.
Every countdown appearance
| Year | # | Song | Countdown |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 7 | Flame Trees | Triple J Hottest 100 of Australian Songs (2025) |
| 2025 | 8 | Khe Sanh | Triple J Hottest 100 of Australian Songs (2025) |
| 2018 | 1 | Khe Sanh | Triple M Ozzest 100 (2018) |
| 2018 | 12 | Flame Trees | Triple M Ozzest 100 (2018) |
| 2018 | 16 | Bow River | Triple M Ozzest 100 (2018) |
| 2018 | 41 | Cheap Wine | Triple M Ozzest 100 (2018) |
| 2018 | 61 | When The War Is Over | Triple M Ozzest 100 (2018) |
| 1998 | 94 | Khe Sanh | Triple J Hottest 100 of All-Time (1998) |
| 1989 | 95 | Khe Sanh | Triple J Hottest 100 of All-Time (1989) |
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