Artist · chart history · #387 in indie & aaa artist polls

Dead Can Dance

Band Melbourne Australia Formed 1981 Australian musical project

Dead Can Dance formed in 1981 in Melbourne, Australia. Dead Can Dance has 24 chart appearances on 17 radio countdowns from 10 stations on RockLists, spanning 1993–2024. The most successful song on radio countdowns is “The Ubiquitous Mr. Lovegrove”, which appears on 14 lists with a best position of #35. The station that charted Dead Can Dance most often is CD101 (Columbus, OH), with 14 appearances. The artist’s biggest year on year-end countdowns was 1993.

24appearances

17countdowns

4songs charted

10stations

0#1 finishes

1993–2024years

Dead Can Dance began in Melbourne in 1981, when Brendan Perry and Lisa Gerrard started the project, and a year later the pair were in London. They landed on 4AD and were lumped in at first with Britain's gothic scene, but the music kept reaching further back and further out, pulling in medieval and Renaissance traditions, ambient pop, darkwave and sounds from around the world. The records feel less like rock albums than rituals, slow and incantatory and lit by candles. Spleen and Ideal in 1985 helped invent neoclassical darkwave, and Within the Realm of a Dying Sun in 1987 carried "Anywhere Out of the World".

Into the Labyrinth in 1993 was their commercial peak, making the Billboard 200 and turning them into the biggest-selling act on 4AD, and "The Ubiquitous Mr. Lovegrove" and "American Dreaming" followed in 1994. Peter Ulrich was their long-serving percussionist through 1995. They split in 1998, came back for a world tour in 2005, reunited again in 2011 for Anastasis, released Dionysus in 2018 and toured Europe in 2022.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.

Songs by Dead Can Dance on radio countdowns

#	Song	Strength	Lists	Best	#1s	Peak year
1	The Ubiquitous Mr. Lovegrove	576	14	#35	–	1993
2	American Dreaming	177	7	#1494	–	–
3	I Am Stretched On Your Grave	58	1	#356	–	–
4	Anywhere Out of the World	5	1	#702	–	–

Albums with charting songs

Where each song was first released, from MusicBrainz.

1987Within the Realm of a Dying Sun1 charting song

Every countdown appearance

Year	#	Song	Countdown
2024	356	I Am Stretched On Your Grave	The Colorado Sound Top 850 Cover Songs
2024	702	Anywhere Out of the World	The Best Opening Tracks of All Time
2023	525	The Ubiquitous Mr. Lovegrove	The Current's 893 Essential Songs of the '90s
2009	833	The Ubiquitous Mr. Lovegrove	WYEP 913 Essential Songs
2006	390	Artist ranking	WXPN 885 All-Time Greatest Artists (2006)
2005	958	The Ubiquitous Mr. Lovegrove	CD101 Top 2006 Songs of All-Time (December 2005)
2005	1494	American Dreaming	CD101 Top 2006 Songs of All-Time (December 2005)
2004	958	The Ubiquitous Mr. Lovegrove	CD101 Top 2005 Songs of All-Time (December 2004)
2004	1495	American Dreaming	CD101 Top 2005 Songs of All-Time (December 2004)
2003	958	The Ubiquitous Mr. Lovegrove	CD101 Top 2004 Songs of All-Time (December 2003)
2003	1495	American Dreaming	CD101 Top 2004 Songs of All-Time (December 2003)
2003	1529	The Ubiquitous Mr. Lovegrove	Fred XM Top 2044 Songs of All-Time (July 2003)
2002	973	The Ubiquitous Mr. Lovegrove	CD101 Top 2003 Songs of All-Time (December 2002)
2002	1501	American Dreaming	CD101 Top 2003 Songs of All-Time (December 2002)
2002	1519	The Ubiquitous Mr. Lovegrove	Fred XM Top 2002 Songs of All-Time (July 2002)
2001	973	The Ubiquitous Mr. Lovegrove	CD101 Top 2002 Songs of All-Time (December 2001)
2001	1503	American Dreaming	CD101 Top 2002 Songs of All-Time (December 2001)
2000	972	The Ubiquitous Mr. Lovegrove	CD101 Top 2001 Songs of All-Time (December 2000)
2000	1496	American Dreaming	CD101 Top 2001 Songs of All-Time (December 2000)
1999	921	The Ubiquitous Mr. Lovegrove	CD101 Top 2000 Songs of All-Time (December 1999)
1999	1496	American Dreaming	CD101 Top 2000 Songs of All-Time (December 1999)
1993	77	The Ubiquitous Mr. Lovegrove	KROQ Top 106.7 Songs of 1993
1993	79	The Ubiquitous Mr. Lovegrove	91X Top 91 Songs of 1993
1993	35	The Ubiquitous Mr. Lovegrove	Live 105 Top 105 Songs of 1993

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