Artist · chart history
Tones and I
Solo artist Shire of Mornington Peninsula Australia
Tones and I is an artist from Shire of Mornington Peninsula. Tones and I has 7 chart appearances on 5 radio countdowns from 2 stations on RockLists, spanning 2019–2023. The most successful song on radio countdowns is “Dance Monkey”, which appears on 2 lists with a best position of #4. The station that charted Tones and I most often is Triple J (Australia (national)), with 6 appearances. The artist’s biggest year on year-end countdowns was 2019.
Toni Watson, the Australian singer, songwriter and producer who records as Tones and I, came off the Mornington Peninsula and went global almost overnight in 2019 with "Dance Monkey", a lopsided, helium-voiced earworm from her debut EP The Kids Are Coming. The song sat at number one in Australia for 24 weeks, outlasting the 22-week run Bing Crosby's "White Christmas" had managed back in 1943, and it topped the charts in more than 30 countries.
The rest of the EP proved she was no one-trick novelty. "Never Seen the Rain" and "Johnny Run Away" work the same strange tension between piano-led melancholy and dancefloor bounce, with Watson's voice cracking and swooping over beats that owe as much to EDM as to indie pop. The record climbed to number three at home, and at the 2019 ARIA Awards she walked off with four of her eight nominations, Best Female Artist and Breakthrough Artist among them.
Her first full-length, Welcome to the Madhouse, arrived in July 2021 and went straight to number one on the Australian albums chart, led by the wide-open, cinematic "Fly Away", which reached number four at home, with "Cloudy Day" trailing behind it. The shadow of that first smash never really lifted, though: in February 2024 "Dance Monkey" made her the first woman with a single song past 3 billion Spotify streams.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs by Tones and I on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Peak year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Dance Monkey | 2 | #4 | – | 2019 | |
| 2 | Never Seen the Rain | 1 | #15 | – | 2019 | |
| 3 | Johnny Run Away | 1 | #26 | – | 2019 | |
| 4 | Fly Away | 1 | #58 | – | 2020 | |
| 5 | Cloudy Day | 1 | #74 | – | 2021 | |
| 6 | Forever Young (originally by Alphaville (via Youth Group)) | 1 | #89 | – | – |
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.
Comments
Log in or create a free account to join the conversation about Tones and I.
No comments yet. Be the first to share your thoughts.