Artist · chart history · #357 in indie & aaa artist polls
Nick Lowe
Solo artist Walton-on-Thames United Kingdom UK singer/songwriter/instrumentalist/producer
Nick Lowe is an artist from Walton-on-Thames. Nick Lowe has 69 chart appearances on 46 radio countdowns from 18 stations on RockLists, spanning 1982–2026. The most successful song on radio countdowns is “Cruel To Be Kind”, which appears on 32 lists with a best position of #131. The station that charted Nick Lowe most often is CD101 (Columbus, OH), with 27 appearances. The artist’s biggest year on year-end countdowns was 2018.
Nick Lowe, born in Walton-on-Thames in 1949, is the craftiest pop brain to come out of pub rock, a man who can write a 3-minute single that sounds like it has always existed and then wink at you about it. He cut his teeth in Brinsley Schwarz and later joined Dave Edmunds in Rockpile. Along the way he wrote "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding", which Elvis Costello turned into a hit, and "I Knew the Bride (When She Used to Rock 'n' Roll)" for Edmunds.
Behind the desk he produced Costello, Graham Parker and others. His own solo run was a riot of power pop and new wave: the Bowi EP in 1977 with "Marie Provost", then Pure Pop for Now People in 1978, home of "So It Goes", "Heart of the City" and "(I Love the Sound of) Breaking Glass", a top 10 hit in Britain. Labour of Lust in 1979 brought "Cracking Up" and "Cruel to Be Kind", a sweet, jangling bittersweet charmer that became his top 40 hit in America.
He plays guitar, bass, piano and harmonica, he later turned up in Little Village, and he was still putting out records as late as the Tokyo Bay / Crying Inside EP in 2018.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs by Nick Lowe on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Peak year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Cruel To Be Kind | 32 | #131 | – | – | |
| 2 | (I Love The Sound of) Breaking Glass | 16 | #324 | – | – | |
| 3 | So It Goes | 7 | #120 | – | – | |
| 4 | Tokyo Bay | 3 | #12 | – | 2018 | |
| 5 | I Knew The Bride (When She Used To Rock And Roll) | 1 | #141 | – | – | |
| 6 | Love Starvation | 1 | #20 | – | 2019 | |
| 7 | I Knew the Bride | 1 | #820 | – | – | |
| 8 | Cracking Up | 2 | #288 | – | – | |
| 9 | Heart Of The City | 2 | #707 | – | – | |
| 10 | Burnin | 1 | #79 | – | 1982 | |
| 11 | Marie Provost | 1 | #675 | – | – | |
| 12 | Sensitive Man | 1 | #81 | – | 2011 |
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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