Artist · chart history
Silverchair
Band Newcastle Australia Active 1992–2011 Australian rock band
Silverchair formed in 1992 in Newcastle, Australia and was active until 2011. Silverchair has 151 chart appearances on 105 radio countdowns from 36 stations on RockLists, spanning 1994–2025. The most successful song on radio countdowns is “Tomorrow”, which appears on 65 lists and was voted number one twice. In total the artist has topped 2 countdowns. The station that charted Silverchair most often is Triple J (Australia (national)), with 26 appearances. The artist’s biggest year on year-end countdowns was 1995.
Silverchair started out as Innocent Criminals in Newcastle, New South Wales, in 1992: Daniel Johns singing and playing guitar, Ben Gillies on drums, Chris Joannou on bass. Their break came in the middle of 1994, when they won a national demo contest run by the SBS TV show Nomad and Triple J, and the Murmur label signed them.
"Tomorrow" was the song that did it, a brooding, sludgy slow-burner with a chorus as big as a stadium, and it went to number one in Australia. Frogstomp came out in 1995 and took the grunge template of distorted guitars, trudging rhythms and a howling vocal and delivered it with total conviction, "Pure Massacre" rumbling alongside. Freak Show carried on in the same vein, only nastier, with "Freak" giving them another Australian number-one single, "Abuse Me" and "The Door" coming close behind.
Then Johns started reaching. Neon Ballroom, in 1999, opened the window to strings and melodrama on "Anthem for the Year 2000" and "Ana's Song (Open Fire)"; Diorama, in 2002, went further into orchestral art rock, lush and sweeping on "The Greatest View" and "Without You". Every step, you could hear the songwriting and the singing getting more ambitious, and all 5 of their studio albums entered the Australian chart in the top spot. After Diorama they took time off in 2003, regrouped for the Wave Aid concerts in 2005, and came back in 2007 with Young Modern and the gleaming, bittersweet "Straight Lines", their third Australian number-one single, before touring with Powderfinger on the Across the Great Divide tour.
In May 2011 they announced an indefinite hiatus, and it has held. The tally they left behind is hard to argue with: over 10 million albums sold worldwide, 6 APRA Awards, and more ARIA Awards than any other group ever, 21 wins from 49 nominations.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs by Silverchair on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Peak year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Tomorrow | 65 | #1 | 2 | 1995 | |
| 2 | Straight Lines | 17 | #2 | – | 2007 | |
| 3 | Abuse Me | 16 | #21 | – | 1997 | |
| 4 | Ana's Song (Open Fire) | 12 | #15 | – | 1999 | |
| 5 | Anthem For The Year 2000 | 10 | #29 | – | 1999 | |
| 6 | Pure Massacre | 6 | #30 | – | 1995 | |
| 7 | Freak | 5 | #13 | – | 1997 | |
| 8 | The Greatest View | 4 | #10 | – | 2002 | |
| 9 | Without You | 1 | #25 | – | 2002 | |
| 10 | The Door | 1 | #27 | – | 1997 | |
| 11 | If You Keep Losing Sleep | 1 | #30 | – | 2007 | |
| 12 | Miss You Love | 1 | #30 | – | 1999 | |
| 13 | Luv Your Life | 1 | #35 | – | 2002 | |
| 14 | Emotion Sickness | 1 | #43 | – | 1999 | |
| 15 | Israel's Son | 4 | #98 | – | 1996 | |
| 16 | Across the Night | 1 | #62 | – | 2002 | |
| 17 | World Upon Your Shoulders | 1 | #76 | – | 2002 | |
| 18 | Reflections of a Sound | 1 | #80 | – | 2007 | |
| 19 | Isreal's Son | 1 | #839 | – | – | |
| 20 | Untitled | 1 | #93 | – | 1998 | |
| 21 | Paint Pastel Princess | 1 | #96 | – | 2000 |
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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