Artist · chart history · #126 in alternative artist polls
Sisters of Mercy
Band Leeds United Kingdom Formed 1980
Sisters of Mercy formed in 1980 in Leeds, United Kingdom. Sisters of Mercy has 176 chart appearances on 102 radio countdowns from 16 stations on RockLists, spanning 1983–2024. The most successful song on radio countdowns is “Temple of Love”, which appears on 41 lists with a best position of #16. The station that charted Sisters of Mercy most often is Studio Brussel (Flanders, Belgium), with 63 appearances. The artist’s biggest year on year-end countdowns was 1988.
The Sisters of Mercy formed in Leeds in 1980 around Andrew Eldritch, a singer-songwriter with a voice like a funeral bell, and Doktor Avalanche, a drum machine that has been the band's only other constant. Everyone else came and went, including Craig Adams, Gary Marx, Ben Gunn, Wayne Hussey and later Patricia Morrison, Tony James and Andreas Bruhn, but those two never budged.
In their early days the Sisters built an underground following with "Alice", "Temple of Love" and "Gimme Shelter". The sound was dark, doomy and hypnotic, with Eldritch's voice rumbling over thick, droning guitars and the machine's relentless beat. First and Last and Always, their debut album in 1985, brought "Walk Away" and "Black Planet" and a breakthrough to a wider audience.
Every album was made by a different lineup. Floodland in 1987, with Morrison on board, is huge, operatic and cinematic, with "This Corrosion" sounding like a cathedral collapsing, and "Lucretia (My Reflection)" and "Dominion/Mother Russia" adding dark grandeur. Vision Thing in 1990 went harder and more guitar-heavy, with "More" and "Detonation Boulevard" as its standouts.
Then Eldritch stopped releasing records in protest against the band's record company. The contract was in his name, not the band's, and to get out of it he delivered one album under the name SSV in 1997, Go Figure, a droning techno record with mumbled vocals, which the company never released. Since then, the Sisters have stayed off any label and put out no new records, though they keep playing new songs live. Former members went on to form Ghost Dance and the Mission.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs by Sisters of Mercy on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Peak year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Temple of Love | 41 | #16 | – | 1983 | |
| 2 | This Corrosion | 36 | #7 | – | 1988 | |
| 3 | More | 24 | #23 | – | 1990 | |
| 4 | Alice | 26 | #18 | – | 1983 | |
| 5 | Detonation Boulevard | 15 | #318 | – | – | |
| 6 | Lucretia | 6 | #132 | – | – | |
| 7 | Walk Away | 3 | #8 | – | 1984 | |
| 8 | Dominion | 5 | #20 | – | 1988 | |
| 9 | Black Planet | 3 | #374 | – | – | |
| 10 | Gimme Shelter | 2 | #371 | – | – | |
| 11 | Emma | 1 | #15 | – | 1984 | |
| 12 | Ribbons | 5 | #1750 | – | – | |
| 13 | Detonation | 1 | #56 | – | 1991 | |
| 14 | Marian | 2 | #36 | – | 1985 | |
| 15 | Under the Gun | 1 | #1592 | – | – | |
| 16 | 1959 | 1 | #815 | – | – | |
| 17 | Some Kind Of Stranger | 1 | #43 | – | 1985 | |
| 18 | RibbonsRank | 1 | #1776 | – | – |
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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