Artist · chart history · #271 in alternative artist polls · #771 in indie & aaa artist polls
Less Than Jake
Band Gainesville United States Formed 1992
Less Than Jake formed in 1992 in Gainesville, United States. Less Than Jake has 46 chart appearances on 38 radio countdowns from 17 stations on RockLists, spanning 1996–2024. The most successful song on radio countdowns is “Dopeman”, which appears on 9 lists with a best position of #46. The station that charted Less Than Jake most often is WBER (Rochester, NY), with 22 appearances. The artist’s biggest year on year-end countdowns was 2003.
Less Than Jake came roaring out of Gainesville in 1992, a ska punk crew with Chris DeMakes on guitar and vocals, Roger Lima on bass and vocals, Vinnie Fiorello pounding the drums and writing the words, and a horn section that has since settled on Buddy Schaub's trombone and Peter "JR" Wasilewski's sax. They cut their teeth on seven-inch singles, dropped the Pezcore album in 1995, and got a major-label deal out of the noise.
Losing Streak, in 1996, is the sound of a basement party that's gotten wildly out of hand: punk-rock drive, brass blaring on the upbeats, and choruses built for shouting back, with "Dopeman" and "Automatic" the ones that broke through. Hello Rockview followed in 1998 with "History of A Boring Town", as bouncy as its title is glum. They moved to Fat Wreck Chords for Borders and Boundaries in 2000, and Anthem in 2003, with "The Science of Selling Yourself Short" and "She's Gonna Break Soon", became their biggest seller.
In 2008 they launched their own label, Sleep It Off Records, and leaned into EPs. Fiorello left in 2018 and Matt Yonker took over the drums. Through it all they've kept their power-pop hooks, their goofball humor and their famous weakness for Pez.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs by Less Than Jake on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Peak year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Dopeman | 9 | #46 | – | 1997 | |
| 2 | History of A Boring Town | 4 | #17 | – | 1998 | |
| 3 | The Science of Selling Yourself Short | 5 | #56 | – | 2003 | |
| 4 | Lie To Me | 2 | #39 | – | 2020 | |
| 5 | Johnny Quest Thinks We're Sellouts | 2 | #42 | – | 1997 | |
| 6 | The Science Of Letting Go | 1 | #24 | – | 2003 | |
| 7 | Look What Happened | 1 | #16 | – | 2000 | |
| 8 | She's Gonna Break Soon | 2 | #61 | – | 2003 | |
| 9 | Does the Lion City Still Roar? | 2 | #46 | – | 2008 | |
| 10 | Automatic | 2 | #47 | – | 1997 | |
| 11 | The Ghost of You and Me | 1 | #74 | – | 2004 | |
| 12 | Kehoe | 1 | #73 | – | 2001 | |
| 13 | Do The Math | 1 | #51 | – | 2014 | |
| 14 | All My Best Friends Are | 1 | #46 | – | 1999 | |
| 15 | Call To Arms | 1 | #48 | – | 2017 | |
| 16 | Overrated (Everything Is) | 1 | #92 | – | 2006 | |
| 17 | Anytime And Anywhere | 1 | #65 | – | 2022 | |
| 18 | Abandon Ship | 1 | #61 | – | 2010 | |
| 19 | The Brightest Bulb Has Burned Out/screws Fall Out | 1 | #148 | – | 2004 | |
| 20 | Good Sign | 1 | #58 | – | 2018 | |
| 21 | The Space They Can't Touch | 1 | #95 | – | 2008 | |
| 22 | Monkey Wrench Myself | 1 | #70 | – | 2021 | |
| 23 | Come Dancing | 1 | #732 | – | – | |
| 24 | Bill | 1 | #103 | – | 2022 |
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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