Artist · chart history
Self
Band Murfreesboro United States Formed 1993 US alternative pop/rock band from Tennessee
Self formed in 1993 in Murfreesboro, United States. Self has 10 chart appearances on 10 radio countdowns from 3 stations on RockLists, spanning 1996–2014. The most successful song on radio countdowns is “Pattycake”, which appears on 8 lists with a best position of #1543. The station that charted Self most often is CD101 (Columbus, OH), with 8 appearances. The artist’s biggest year on year-end countdowns was 1996.
Self is Matt Mahaffey's baby, a pop-rock band out of Murfreesboro, Tennessee that started in 1993 as a duo with his brother Mike and grew into a proper group with Chris James on keyboards, Mac Burrus on bass and Jason Rawlings on drums. Zoo Entertainment snapped them up for the 1995 debut, Subliminal Plastic Motives, and on the strength of "Cannon" and "So Low" it moved more than 40,000 copies within two years.
Then Mahaffey got restless in the best way. The Half-Baked Serenade in 1997 went experimental, a demo collection followed, and Breakfast with Girls came out on DreamWorks in 1999 with "Paint by Numbers" leading the charge, a record that drew mixed notices at first and a warmer reputation later. Gizmodgery, in 2000, is the stunt that works: an entire album played on toy instruments, where "Pattycake", "Trunk Fulla Amps" and "Dead Man" sound like a power-pop band raiding a toy chest and coming out with real songs. Self also turned up on the Shrek and Evolution soundtracks.
The fifth album, Ornament & Crime, got stuck when DreamWorks folded and didn't surface until 2017. Mike Mahaffey died in 2005 and the band went on hiatus, but they returned with the Super Fake Nice EP in 2014 and new singles in 2024.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs by Self on radio countdowns
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.
Every countdown appearance
| Year | # | Song | Countdown |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 | 1688 | Pattycake | CD101 Top 2014 Songs of All-Time (2014) |
| 2013 | 1623 | Pattycake | CD101 Top 2013 Songs of All-Time (December 2013) |
| 2011 | 1640 | Pattycake | CD101 Top 2012 Songs of All-Time (December 2011) |
| 2010 | 1574 | Pattycake | CD101 Top 2011 Songs of All-Time (December 2010) |
| 2009 | 1543 | Pattycake | CD101 Top 2010 Songs of All-Time (December 2009) |
| 2008 | 1645 | Pattycake | CD101 Top 2009 Songs of All-Time (December 2008) |
| 2007 | 1649 | Pattycake | CD101 Top 2008 Songs of All-Time (December 2007) |
| 2005 | 1961 | Pattycake | CD101 Top 2006 Songs of All-Time (December 2005) |
| 1997 | 89 | Kiddies | X103.9 Top 103.9 Songs of 1997 |
| 1996 | 81 | So Low | WHFS Top 99.1 Songs of 1996 |
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