Artist · chart history · #199 in alternative artist polls
Peter Murphy
Solo artist Northampton United Kingdom UK singer & musician
Peter Murphy is an artist from Northampton. Peter Murphy has 111 chart appearances on 75 radio countdowns from 20 stations on RockLists, spanning 1988–2026. The most successful song on radio countdowns is “Cuts You Up”, which appears on 58 lists with a best position of #10. The station that charted Peter Murphy most often is CD101 (Columbus, OH), with 32 appearances. The artist’s biggest year on year-end countdowns was 1990.
Peter Murphy made his name as the singer of Bauhaus, the post-punk band he co-founded with Daniel Ash in 1978, and with his razor cheekbones, deep baritone and taste for gloomy poetry, he's been called the Godfather of Goth ever since. After Bauhaus split, he teamed up with Japan's bassist Mick Karn as Dalis Car for one album, The Waking Hour, in 1984, then struck out alone with Should the World Fail to Fall Apart in 1986 and Love Hysteria in 1988, where "Indigo Eyes" and "All Night Long" showed a warmer, more romantic side under the shadows.
Deep was the commercial breakthrough, and "Cuts You Up" is the reason: a hypnotic, lovesick swoon that crept into the Billboard Hot 100 and has haunted alternative radio ever since, with "A Strange Kind of Love" just as seductive. Holy Smoke followed in 1992 with "The Sweetest Drop". Then Murphy moved his family from London to Turkey, and from there released Cascade in 1995.
He never stopped wandering. Bauhaus reunited for the Gotham tour in 1998 and again from 2005 to 2007, making one last album, Go Away White. Dust, in 2002 with Mercan Dede, traded rock for traditional Turkish instruments; Unshattered, in 2004, brought him back to alternative rock, with Ninth and the Youth-produced Lion to follow. Silver Shade arrived in May 2025, with Boy George and Trent Reznor dropping in.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs by Peter Murphy on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Peak year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Cuts You Up | 58 | #10 | – | 1990 | |
| 2 | Indigo Eyes | 21 | #31 | – | 1988 | |
| 3 | The Sweetest Drop | 5 | #4 | – | 1992 | |
| 4 | All Night Long | 7 | #55 | – | 1988 | |
| 5 | A Strange Kind of Love | 6 | #60 | – | 1990 | |
| 6 | The Scarlet Thing In You | 4 | #1691 | – | – | |
| 7 | My Last Two Weeks | 1 | #90 | – | 2002 | |
| 8 | I'll Fall With Your Knife | 1 | #22 | – | 1995 | |
| 9 | Swoon | 1 | #29 | – | 2025 | |
| 10 | Subway | 1 | #1286 | – | – | |
| 11 | Final Solution | 2 | #753 | – | – | |
| 12 | I Spit Roses | 1 | #97 | – | 2011 | |
| 13 | Marlene Deitrich's Favourite Poem | 1 | #896 | – | – |
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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