Artist · chart history
The Payolas
Band Vancouver Canada Active 1978–2008
The Payolas formed in 1978 in Vancouver, Canada and was active until 2008. The Payolas has 15 chart appearances on 15 radio countdowns from 6 stations on RockLists, spanning 1988–2023. The most successful song on radio countdowns is “Eyes of a Stranger”, which appears on 15 lists with a best position of #92. The station that charted The Payolas most often is KROQ (Los Angeles, CA), with 6 appearances.
The Payolas came out of Vancouver in 1978 under a name stylized as Payola$, with a lineup built around 2 men: Paul Hyde, the singer and lyricist, and Bob Rock, who played a bit of everything, wrote songs and produced. They started out in the new wave camp and drifted toward bigger, glossier pop rock, going through names like Paul Hyde and the Payolas and Rock and Hyde along the way. Gary Bourgeois and Chris Taylor were also in the band.
No Stranger to Danger, their 1982 album on A&M, is the peak, and "Eyes of a Stranger" is the reason: a moody, echo-drenched slow burn full of menace, with Hyde sounding haunted over the top. The album won the band 4 Juno Awards. They broke up in 1988, got back together in 2003 and carried on until 2008.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs by The Payolas on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Peak year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Eyes of a Stranger | 15 | #92 | – | – |
Albums with charting songs
Where each song was first released, from MusicBrainz.
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