Artist · chart history
Scritti Politti
Band Leeds United Kingdom Formed 1978
Scritti Politti formed in 1978 in Leeds, United Kingdom. Scritti Politti has 21 chart appearances on 17 radio countdowns from 6 stations on RockLists, spanning 1981–2023. The most successful song on radio countdowns is “Perfect Way”, which appears on 12 lists with a best position of #32. The station that charted Scritti Politti most often is KROQ (Los Angeles, CA), with 10 appearances. The artist’s biggest year on year-end countdowns was 1982.
Scritti Politti started in Leeds as the project of Welsh singer and songwriter Green Gartside, a punk-aligned underground act shaped by leftist politics. Then, in the early '80s, Gartside did the least punk thing imaginable and fell for pop music, and the results were gorgeous. Songs to Remember, on Rough Trade in 1982, carried "The Sweetest Girl", "Faithless" and "Asylums In Jerusalem", all silky reggae lilts and lovers-rock sighs wrapped around a very clever brain.
Cupid & Psyche 85 went all the way. It's pure gloss: sharp, programmed funk, stacked harmonies and Gartside's sweet, airy voice gliding over the top, with David Gamson and Fred Maher among the names in the lineup. "Wood Beez (Pray Like Aretha Franklin)", "Absolute" and "The Word Girl" all went top 20 in the UK, and "Perfect Way" went top 20 in America. It remains the band's biggest album.
Provision followed in 1988, reaching the UK top 10 and producing the top 20 single "Oh Patti", with "Boom! There She Was" also on the record. After two non-album singles in 1991 and a collaboration with B.E.F., Scritti Politti went quiet for 7 years before returning in the late '90s, with Gartside the only member left from the original band.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs by Scritti Politti on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Peak year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Perfect Way | 12 | #32 | – | 1985 | |
| 2 | Wood Beez | 2 | #12 | – | 1984 | |
| 3 | The Sweetest Girl | 2 | #22 | – | – | |
| 4 | Boom! There She Was | 2 | #57 | – | 1988 | |
| 5 | Faithless | 1 | #13 | – | 1982 | |
| 6 | Asylums In Jerusalem | 1 | #18 | – | 1982 | |
| 7 | Hypnotize | 1 | #1174 | – | – |
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.
Comments
Log in or create a free account to join the conversation about Scritti Politti.
No comments yet. Be the first to share your thoughts.