Artist · chart history
Lords of the New Church
Band London United Kingdom Active 1982–2007
Lords of the New Church formed in 1982 in London, United Kingdom and was active until 2007. Lords of the New Church has 14 chart appearances on 10 radio countdowns from 7 stations on RockLists, spanning 1982–2024. The most successful song on radio countdowns is “Open Your Eyes”, which appears on 4 lists with a best position of #32. The station that charted Lords of the New Church most often is Fred (XM 44) (XM Satellite Radio (national)), with 4 appearances. The artist’s biggest year on year-end countdowns was 1982.
The Lords of the New Church were a punk supergroup built from the wreckage of the first wave: Stiv Bators from the Dead Boys on vocals, Brian James from the Damned on guitar, Dave Tregunna from Sham 69 on bass and Nick Turner from the Barracudas on drums. Their 1982 debut on I.R.S. Records, The Lords of the New Church, arrived with "Open Your Eyes", a brooding, doom-laden anthem with a chorus the size of a cathedral, and "Russian Roulette".
This was punk with production values, sleeker and more tuneful than most of their peers, which won them a wider audience and cost them the hardcore crowd. They wrapped the whole thing in a tribal look and attitude that their fans took up as their own, and Bators' stage stunts became notorious; on one occasion they reportedly left him clinically dead for several minutes. Is Nothing Sacred? followed in 1983 with "Dance with Me" and "Live for Today", then The Method to Our Madness in 1984, and a cover of Madonna's "Like a Virgin" that was as cheeky as it sounds.
The lineup shifted over the years, and after three studio albums they called it off at the end of the '80s. James and Tregunna brought the name back between 2001 and 2003, and again briefly in 2007.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs by Lords of the New Church on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Peak year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Open Your Eyes | 4 | #32 | – | 1982 | |
| 2 | Dance With Me | 4 | #81 | – | 1983 | |
| 3 | Live for Today | 2 | #341 | – | – | |
| 4 | Method To Our Madness | 1 | #367 | – | – | |
| 5 | Like a Virgin | 1 | #1843 | – | – | |
| 6 | Russian Roulette | 1 | #463 | – | – | |
| 7 | Virgin | 1 | #86 | – | 1985 |
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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