Artist · chart history
HIM
Band Helsinki Finland Active 1991–2017 Finnish rock band
HIM formed in 1991 in Helsinki, Finland and was active until 2017. HIM has 16 chart appearances on 16 radio countdowns from 13 stations on RockLists, spanning 2004–2009. The most successful song on radio countdowns is “Wings of a Butterfly”, which appears on 11 lists with a best position of #16. The station that charted HIM most often is WCCC The Rock (Hartford, CT), with 3 appearances. The artist’s biggest year on year-end countdowns was 2006.
HIM started life in Helsinki in 1991 as His Infernal Majesty, the brainchild of singer Ville Valo and bassist Mikko "Mige" Paananen, fell apart after a few years, and came back in 1995 when Valo teamed up with guitarist Mikko "Linde" Lindström. With Mige back in the fold, the debut Greatest Lovesongs Vol. 666 arrived in 1997, and the band's sound was already fully formed: gloomy, gorgeous, sugar-coated doom, heavy guitars under melodies built to break hearts. They called it love metal, and they had the heartagram logo to go with it.
Razorblade Romance was the breakout, a number-one album in Finland, Austria and Germany, with "Join Me in Death" topping the singles charts in Finland and Germany. With Mika "Gas Lipstick" Karppinen on drums and Burton on keyboards, Deep Shadows and Brilliant Highlights and Love Metal carried them into the UK and US for the first time.
Dark Light, in 2005, was the big one, their best seller, with the swooning, crunching "Rip Out the Wings of a Butterfly" and "Killing Loneliness", and it made HIM the first Finnish band to earn a Gold record in America. Venus Doom followed in 2007, made through a rough stretch in Valo's personal life, and still gave them their highest US chart placing. More than ten million records and 8 Emma Awards later, they called it a day, playing their last show on New Year's Eve 2017.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs by HIM on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Peak year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Wings of a Butterfly | 11 | #16 | – | 2006 | |
| 2 | Join Me in Death | 2 | #65 | – | 2004 | |
| 3 | Heart Killer | 1 | #95 | – | 2009 | |
| 4 | The Kiss of Dawn | 1 | #99 | – | 2007 | |
| 5 | Killing Loneliness | 1 | #100 | – | 2006 |
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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