Artist · chart history
Martini Ranch
Band United States Formed 1982
Martini Ranch formed in 1982 in the United States. Martini Ranch has 5 chart appearances on 5 radio countdowns from 2 stations on RockLists, spanning 1986–1988. The most successful song on radio countdowns is “Reach”, which appears on 3 lists with a best position of #16. The station that charted Martini Ranch most often is KROQ (Los Angeles, CA), with 3 appearances. The artist’s biggest year on year-end countdowns was 1988.
Martini Ranch was Andrew Todd Rosenthal's brainchild, a synth-pop outfit he dreamed up in 1982 with Cliff Roman and Steven "Billy Bones" Fortuna. By the time Sire put out Holy Cow in 1988, the band had slimmed down to a duo: Rosenthal on vocals and guitar, and the actor Bill Paxton, of all people, handling voices and samples.
What they made sounds a lot like late-period Devo, all jerky rhythms, chattering machines and deadpan yelps, and the resemblance is no accident: three members of Devo turned up on one of their tracks, a wordy little treatise on the labouring man and self-culture that plays like a factory floor with a drum machine. "Reach" is the one that caught on, a punchy, cartoonish blast of new wave with a grin you can hear.
The movies came calling too. Martini Ranch opened the 1988 film You Can't Hurry Love, directed by Richard Martini (no relation), and a year later they turned up over the end credits of Paxton's cult movie Brain Dead. Rosenthal later moved on to a new band, Swifty's Bazaar.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs by Martini Ranch on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Peak year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Reach | 3 | #16 | – | 1988 | |
| 2 | Working Man | 1 | #265 | – | – | |
| 3 | How Can a Laboring Man Find Time for Self-Culture? | 1 | #73 | – | 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.
Every countdown appearance
| Year | # | Song | Countdown |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1988 | 16 | Reach | KROQ Top 106.7 Songs of 1988 |
| 1988 | 21 | Reach | Live 105 Top 105.3 Songs of 1988 |
| 1988 | 265 | Working Man | KROQ Flashback 500 (Memorial Day 1988) |
| 1988 | 393 | Reach | Live 105 Top 500 Songs of All-Time (Memorial Day 1988) |
| 1986 | 73 | How Can a Laboring Man Find Time for Self-Culture? | KROQ Top 106.7 Songs of 1986 |
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