Artist · chart history
Metric
Band Toronto Canada Formed 1998 indie rock
Metric formed in 1998 in Toronto, Canada. Metric has 159 chart appearances on 113 radio countdowns from 44 stations on RockLists, spanning 2004–2026. The most successful song on radio countdowns is “Help, Im Alive”, which appears on 31 lists with a best position of #2. In total the artist has topped 1 countdown. The station that charted Metric most often is CD101 (Columbus, OH), with 21 appearances. The artist’s biggest year on year-end countdowns was 2009.
Metric came out of Toronto in 1998 as a two-piece, Emily Haines and James Shaw, going by the name Mainstream, and by the time Old World Underground, Where Are You Now? landed in 2003 they had a new name and a sound built from twitchy synths, spiky guitars and Haines's cool, knowing sneer. She sings and plays synthesizers, guitar, piano and harmonica; Shaw works guitar, synths and even a theremin; Joshua Winstead on bass and Joules Scott-Key on drums keep the floor moving. "Combat Baby" and "Dead Disco" set the terms: indie rock you could dance to, delivered by a singer who seemed to have seen through the party before it started.
The album they had meant to debut with, Grow Up and Blow Away, was recorded in 2001 and sat on a shelf until 2007. Live It Out, in 2005, brought the jittery "Monster Hospital" and nominations for both the Polaris Music Prize and a Juno. Fantasies, in 2009, was the one that opened the floodgates, with "Help, I'm Alive", "Gold, Guns, Girls" and "Sick Muse"; it won Alternative Album of the Year at the Junos, and the band took Group of the Year. Synthetica repeated the Juno trick in 2013, and Shaw was named Producer of the Year.
They kept at it through Pagans in Vegas, Art of Doubt and Formentera, the sheen getting glossier while the unease underneath stayed put, and in 2026 they were still going, with Romanticize the Dive.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs by Metric on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Peak year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Help, Im Alive | 31 | #2 | – | 2009 | |
| 2 | Gold, Guns, Girls | 23 | #6 | – | 2010 | |
| 3 | Youth Without Youth | 17 | #7 | – | 2012 | |
| 4 | Combat Baby | 11 | #38 | – | 2004 | |
| 5 | All Comes Crashing | 12 | #1 | 1 | 2022 | |
| 6 | Gimme Sympathy | 13 | #4 | – | 2009 | |
| 7 | Breathing Underwater | 15 | #21 | – | 2012 | |
| 8 | Just The Once | 6 | #21 | – | 2023 | |
| 9 | The Shade | 3 | #7 | – | 2015 | |
| 10 | Monster Hospital | 4 | #52 | – | 2005 | |
| 11 | Dark Saturday | 2 | #27 | – | 2018 | |
| 12 | Eclipse | 2 | #37 | – | 2010 | |
| 13 | Dead Disco | 2 | #16 | – | 2005 | |
| 14 | Eclipse (All Yours) | 5 | #38 | – | 2010 | |
| 15 | Black Sheep | 1 | #4 | – | 2010 | |
| 16 | Oh Please | 1 | #11 | – | 2023 | |
| 17 | Now or Never Now | 2 | #41 | – | 2018 | |
| 18 | Underline The Black | 1 | #15 | – | 2019 | |
| 19 | Stadium Love | 1 | #32 | – | 2010 | |
| 20 | Sick Muse | 1 | #42 | – | 2009 | |
| 21 | Synthetica | 1 | #44 | – | 2012 | |
| 22 | Poster of A Girl | 1 | #62 | – | 2006 | |
| 23 | I Will Never Settle | 1 | #52 | – | 2024 | |
| 24 | Dressed To Suppress | 1 | #70 | – | 2018 | |
| 25 | Gold, Girls, Guns | 1 | #75 | – | 2010 | |
| 26 | Blindness | 1 | #950 | – | – |
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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