Artist · chart history
David Essex
Solo artist Plaistow United Kingdom
David Essex is an artist from Plaistow. David Essex has 18 chart appearances on 18 radio countdowns from 17 stations on RockLists, spanning 1997–2026. The most successful song on radio countdowns is “Rock On”, which appears on 18 lists with a best position of #241. The station that charted David Essex most often is 92.3 KGON (Portland, OR), with 2 appearances.
David Essex, out of Plaistow and born David Albert Cook in 1947, has been a pop star and an actor at the same time and never quite let either career win. "Rock On" is the one the whole world knows, a spare, shadowy slink of a single that was his biggest success abroad, and in 1975 he was up for the Grammy for Best New Artist.
At home he was a fixture. Between 1973 and 1994 he stacked up nineteen Top 40 singles in Britain, two of them number ones, along with sixteen Top 40 albums. The screen and stage kept calling too: That'll Be the Day in 1973 got him a BAFTA nomination as a promising newcomer, and Evita brought him an Olivier nomination in 1978.
By 1989 he was still making records, Touching the Ghost among them, and a decade later he was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs by David Essex on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Peak year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Rock On | 18 | #241 | – | – |
Albums with charting songs
Where each song was first released, from MusicBrainz.
Every countdown appearance
| Year | # | Song | Countdown |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 415 | Rock On | KSLX Arizona 500 (2026) |
| 2024 | 360 | Rock On | KQRS KQ 500 (2024) |
| 2023 | 768 | Rock On | WPDH Top 1015 (2023) |
| 2022 | 257 | Rock On | River 500 (2022) |
| 2022 | 638 | Rock On | 90.9 The Bridge Top 909 Songs of the '70s |
| 2021 | 307 | Rock On | WCSX Rock & Roll 500 (2021) |
| 2020 | 552 | Rock On | KZOK Classic Rock Top 1025 (2020) |
| 2020 | 1339 | Rock On | WXPN 2020 Greatest Songs of All Time |
| 2016 | 241 | Rock On | The Fox Memorial Day 500 (2016) |
| 2016 | 492 | Rock On | 102.9 The Whale Hartford 500 (2016) |
| 2015 | 476 | Rock On | I-95 Memorial Day Weekend Top 500 (2015) |
| 2014 | 733 | Rock On | BIG 1000 New Year's Countdown (2014) |
| 2004 | 376 | Rock On | KGON Top 923 Classic Rock Songs of All Time (2004) |
| 2002 | 359 | Rock On | KGON Top 923 Classic Rock Songs of All Time (2002) |
| 1999 | 442 | Rock On | KISW Top 1000 of All Time (1999) |
| 1997 | 258 | Rock On | WZLX Memorial 500 (1997) |
| 1997 | 303 | Rock On | KZEP Memorial Weekend Top 500 (1997) |
| 1997 | 817 | Rock On | WBAB Top 1,023 Rock and Roll Songs of All Time (1997) |
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