Artist · chart history · #130 in alternative artist polls
Ministry
Band Chicago United States Formed 1981 US industrial metal band
Ministry formed in 1981 in Chicago, United States. Ministry has 138 chart appearances on 74 radio countdowns from 25 stations on RockLists, spanning 1985–2025. The most successful song on radio countdowns is “Everyday is Halloween”, which appears on 33 lists with a best position of #6. The station that charted Ministry most often is WOXY 97X (Cincinnati, OH), with 27 appearances. The artist’s biggest year on year-end countdowns was 1992.
Ministry was the brainchild of Al Jourgensen, a Chicago producer, singer and multi-instrumentalist who launched the band in 1981 as a synth-pop act and then spent the rest of the decade turning it into something far nastier. With Sympathy, in 1983, was slick and poppy, with "Work for Love" and "I Wanted to Tell Her". Twitch, in 1986, with "Over the Shoulder", was darker and more abrasive, and by The Land of Rape and Honey in 1988, Jourgensen had found his true calling: industrial metal, a pummeling, mechanical roar. "Stigmata" is as brutal as anything in rock.
Paul Barker joined on bass in 1986 and stayed for nearly two decades, and Bill Rieflin and Chris Connelly were among the regulars on the records that followed. The Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Taste, in 1989, with "Burning Inside" and "Thieves", and ΚΕΦΑΛΗΞΘ, better known as Psalm 69, in 1992, were their commercial peak. The latter went platinum, with "Jesus Built My Hotrod", "N.W.O." and "Just One Fix", songs that sound like factories collapsing, and the band hit the road on the second Lollapalooza tour that same year.
Filth Pig, in 1996, changed direction and became their highest-charting album, but critics were divided and the band's fortunes began to slide. Warner Bros. dropped them after Dark Side of the Spoon in 1999, and Jourgensen entered rehab. He came back in 2003 with Animositisomina, Barker's last album with the band, and then fired off three records attacking George W. Bush: Houses of the Molé, Rio Grande Blood and The Last Sucker.
The Last Sucker was meant to be the end, but Ministry reformed in 2011 and released Relapse. After guitarist Mike Scaccia died of a heart attack on December 23, 2012, Jourgensen thought the band was over again, but From Beer to Eternity, AmeriKKKant, Moral Hygiene and Hopiumforthemasses kept coming, and a final farewell tour is planned. Six Grammy nominations and countless lineup changes later, Jourgensen remains the only original member.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs by Ministry on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Peak year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Everyday is Halloween | 33 | #6 | – | 1985 | |
| 2 | Jesus Built My Hotrod | 25 | #3 | – | 1992 | |
| 3 | Work for Love | 18 | #112 | – | – | |
| 4 | N.W.O. | 20 | #13 | – | 1992 | |
| 5 | Stigmata | 14 | #61 | – | – | |
| 6 | Everyday Is Like Halloween | 4 | #47 | – | – | |
| 7 | Burning Inside | 4 | #174 | – | – | |
| 8 | Thieves | 3 | #353 | – | – | |
| 9 | Just One Fix | 2 | #20 | – | 1992 | |
| 10 | Lay Lady Lay | 2 | #43 | – | 1996 | |
| 11 | Over The Shoulder | 1 | #177 | – | – | |
| 12 | I Wanted to Tell Her | 1 | #98 | – | – | |
| 13 | Everyday Is Like Sunday | 1 | #261 | – | – | |
| 14 | Cold Life | 1 | #275 | – | – | |
| 15 | So What | 1 | #559 | – | – | |
| 16 | NOW | 1 | #424 | – | – | |
| 17 | Revenge | 1 | #185 | – | – | |
| 18 | Effigy | 2 | #194 | – | – |
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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