Artist · chart history · #306 in alternative artist polls
Icehouse
Band Sydney Australia Formed 1977 Australian rock band previously known as “Flowers”
Icehouse formed in 1977 in Sydney, Australia. Icehouse has 27 chart appearances on 18 radio countdowns from 9 stations on RockLists, spanning 1986–2026. The most successful song on radio countdowns is “Crazy”, which appears on 6 lists with a best position of #28. The station that charted Icehouse most often is KROQ (Los Angeles, CA), with 8 appearances. The artist’s biggest year on year-end countdowns was 1987.
Icehouse started life in Sydney in 1977 under another name, Flowers, slogging through the pub circuit before Iva Davies steered the band somewhere colder and sleeker. The new name arrived in 1981, borrowed from a chilly old flat Davies had lived in and the strange building opposite it, home to a drifting population. Davies has been the one constant: writing, singing, producing and playing guitar, bass, keyboards and even oboe, with a shifting cast around him that has included Robert Kretschmer, Andy Qunta, Steve Morgan and Guy Pratt.
Davies was a gadget man, and it shows. A Prophet-5 synthesizer drives "Love in Motion", a Linn drum machine ticks under "Hey Little Girl", and by 1983 he had a Fairlight CMI working on the trailer for Razorback, helping drag Australian pop into the synthesizer age. "Great Southern Land", from Primitive Man in 1982, is the big, brooding widescreen moment, and Primitive Man went top three at home.
Boxes and Measure for Measure kept the sound glossy through the middle of the decade, with "No Promises" and "Cross the Border", and Man of Colours in 1987 went top three as well, carrying "Crazy" and "Electric Blue". The Australian Recording Industry Association put Icehouse in its Hall of Fame in 2006.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs by Icehouse on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Peak year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Crazy | 6 | #28 | – | 1987 | |
| 2 | No Promises | 10 | #86 | – | 1986 | |
| 3 | Electric Blue | 7 | #61 | – | 1988 | |
| 4 | Great Southern Land | 2 | #4 | – | – | |
| 5 | Cross the Border | 1 | #67 | – | 1986 |
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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