Artist · chart history · #279 in alternative artist polls
The Damned
Band London United Kingdom Formed 1976 UK punk band
The Damned formed in 1976 in London, United Kingdom. The Damned has 90 chart appearances on 51 radio countdowns from 13 stations on RockLists, spanning 1977–2024. The most successful song on radio countdowns is “New Rose”, which appears on 24 lists with a best position of #8. The station that charted The Damned most often is CD101 (Columbus, OH), with 29 appearances. The artist’s biggest year on year-end countdowns was 1987.
The Damned came out of London in 1976 fast, loud and first. Dave Vanian sang with a theatrical croon, Brian James played guitar, Captain Sensible played bass, and Rat Scabies hit the drums like he had a train to catch. They were the first British punk band to put out a single, the headlong blitz of "New Rose", the first to put out an album, Damned Damned Damned, with "Neat Neat Neat" on it, and the first to tour America.
The second album, Music for Pleasure, got a critical kicking and the band briefly fell apart. They came back without James, Sensible moved over to guitar, and Machine Gun Etiquette in 1979, with "Love Song" and "Smash It Up", proved punk had a second act. Through the '80s they drifted into gothic and psychedelic rock on The Black Album, Strawberries, Phantasmagoria and Anything, the last two made after Sensible left in 1984; the spooky "Alone Again Or" came from that stretch.
They kept splitting and reuniting: Evil Spirits in 2018 finally put a Damned studio record into the British top 10, Darkadelic matched it, and Scabies rejoined in November 2023 for Not Like Everybody Else, a 2026 covers album.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs by The Damned on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Peak year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | New Rose | 24 | #8 | – | – | |
| 2 | Alone Again Or | 29 | #36 | – | 1987 | |
| 3 | Neat Neat Neat | 5 | #12 | – | 1977 | |
| 4 | Smash It Up | 5 | #42 | – | – | |
| 5 | In Dulce Decorum | 4 | #199 | – | – | |
| 6 | Eloise | 7 | #1606 | – | – | |
| 7 | Love Song | 3 | #22 | – | – | |
| 8 | Jet Boy Jet Girl | 1 | #12 | – | – | |
| 9 | In Dulce December | 1 | #70 | – | – | |
| 10 | Psychomania | 2 | #1099 | – | – | |
| 11 | Smash It Up Pts. 1 & 2 | 1 | #498 | – | – | |
| 12 | Wake the Dead | 1 | #150 | – | 2023 | |
| 13 | Grimly Fiendish | 2 | #427 | – | – | |
| 14 | Shadow of Love | 1 | #1794 | – | – | |
| 15 | Hit or Miss | 1 | #1848 | – | – | |
| 16 | Wait for the blackout | 1 | #2019 | – | – | |
| 17 | Tightrope Walk | 1 | #1993 | – | – |
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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