Artist · chart history
Uptones
Band United States Formed 1981
Uptones formed in 1981 in the United States. Uptones has 3 chart appearances on 2 radio countdowns from 1 station on RockLists, spanning 1987–1988. The most successful song on radio countdowns is “Burning Skies”, which appears on 1 list with a best position of #160. The station that charted Uptones most often is Live 105 (San Francisco, CA), with 3 appearances. The artist’s biggest year on year-end countdowns was 1987.
The Uptones were a gang of Berkeley high school kids when they started up in 1981, and they had fallen hard for the English 2 Tone sound, with the mod scene, punk rock and original Jamaican ska all stirred into the pot. That made them one of the first bands in the US to devote themselves to ska, and they left their fingerprints all over the West Coast punk and ska scene that came boiling up behind them.
Eric Din led from the front on guitar and lead vocals, and plenty of players passed through the lineup over the years. They recorded for 415 Records, and songs like "Burning Sky" and "KUSA" are all jittery upstrokes, skanking rhythm and punky urgency, dance music for kids who wanted to sweat. Years later the core founders got the band back together and kept playing Bay Area stages until 2018.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs by Uptones on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Peak year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Burning Skies | 1 | #160 | – | – | |
| 2 | Burning Sky | 1 | #63 | – | 1987 | |
| 3 | KUSA | 1 | #416 | – | – |
Every countdown appearance
| Year | # | Song | Countdown |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1988 | 160 | Burning Skies | Live 105 Top 500 Songs of All-Time (Memorial Day 1988) |
| 1988 | 416 | KUSA | Live 105 Top 500 Songs of All-Time (Memorial Day 1988) |
| 1987 | 63 | Burning Sky | Live 105 Top 105.3 Songs of 1987 |
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