Artist · chart history
Hunters And Collectors
Band Melbourne Australia Active 1981–1998
Hunters And Collectors formed in 1981 in Melbourne, Australia and was active until 1998. Hunters And Collectors has 26 chart appearances on 12 radio countdowns from 5 stations on RockLists, spanning 1988–2025. The most successful song on radio countdowns is “Throw Your Arms Around Me”, which appears on 9 lists with a best position of #2. The station that charted Hunters And Collectors most often is Triple J (Australia (national)), with 17 appearances. The artist’s biggest year on year-end countdowns was 1993.
Hunters & Collectors came together in Melbourne in 1981 with Mark Seymour singing and playing guitar, John Archer on bass and Doug Falconer pounding the drums, and they soon added a horn section, with Jack Howard on trumpet, Jeremy Smith on French horn and Michael Waters on trombone. Engineer and designer Robert Miles counted as a founder too. The early records were something else again, raw and tribal post-punk steeped in krautrock, all clattering percussion, abrasive guitar and a bass line that never let up, and "Talking to a Stranger" in 1982 was the calling card. They even brought in Conny Plank to produce The Fireman's Curse and The Jaws of Life.
Human Frailty, in 1986, changed everything. The noise gave way to big, polished, anthemic pub rock, Seymour's songs grew into howls of raw feeling, and the record, with "Throw Your Arms Around Me" and "Say Goodbye", became their first top 10 album on Mushroom. Barry Palmer arrived on lead guitar in 1988, and Fate, Ghost Nation with "When the River Runs Dry" and Cut, home of "Holy Grail", kept the anthems coming.
On stage they were one of the biggest draws in Australia, a sweat-soaked ritual of an evening. They called it quits in 1998 and came back with that same lineup in 2013.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs by Hunters And Collectors on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Peak year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Throw Your Arms Around Me | 9 | #2 | – | – | |
| 2 | Talking to a Stranger | 5 | #8 | – | – | |
| 3 | Holy Grail | 4 | #30 | – | 1993 | |
| 4 | The Slab | 3 | #26 | – | – | |
| 5 | When the River Runs Dry | 2 | #71 | – | 1990 | |
| 6 | Say Goodbye | 2 | #71 | – | – | |
| 7 | Wishing Well | 1 | #89 | – | 1988 |
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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