A major landmark has been achieved this week on the Rock Top 30. Since the Rock Top 30 started its weekly chart in 1979, no group had ever made the number one rock song spot twenty times until this very week.
Foo Fighters hit number one for the 20th time this week with new song Something From Nothing.
Number One Rock Songs By Foo Fighters in order
1. This Is A Call – 1995
2. I’ll Stick Around – 1995
3. Big Me – 1996
4. Monkey Wrench – 1997
5. Everlong – 1997
6. My Hero – 1998
7. Learn To Fly – 1999
8. All My Life – 2002
9. Times Like These (One-Way Motorway) – 2003
10. Best Of You – 2005
11. DOA – 2005
12. No Way Back – 2006
13. The Pretender – 2007
14. Long Road To Ruin – 2007
15. Let It Die – 2008
16. Wheels – 2009
17. Rope – 2011
18. Walk – 2011
19. These Days – 2011
20. Something From Nothing – 2014
A few months back, Linkin Park had its 17th number one, creating a four-way tie for second most number one songs with Pearl Jam, U2, and Van Halen. Linkin Park’s more recent song missed number one, keeping the gap between Foo Fighters and Linkin Park at two songs. Now, Foo Fighters widens its lead — three songs ahead of the four-way tie of contenders.
The answer, by the way, was Another Brick In The Wall, Part 2 by Pink Floyd! From 1980 through 2015, this song was easily the biggest!
At Kickass Rock Radio. Most of the time, Jammin Joe plays today’s rock and alternative, leaning toward the harder side on the genres. I spend much of my time monitoring radio to hear the current most popular songs for the rock chart. I always find some time to listen to Kickass Rock Radio for pleasure. I love the heavier mix of current music.
But on Friday nights, clear the decks …
Joe is live with special countdowns and programs far outside the usual format. Since March 22, 2014, Friday nights at 7PM and running past 11, US Eastern Time, Jammin Joe takes the mic live to present the incredible first airing of Top 1000 Rock Songs Of All Time In Chart History. This all time chart has never been published and can only be heard at Kickass Radio on Live365. I am hearing that an all time rock songs list will not be officially published until near the end of the decade, so this is the only chance to find the biggest rock songs for a while.
Just to give you an idea how huge these songs are, we already heard Smells Like Teen Spirit. The rest of the songs are even bigger.
Tonight, we crack into the cream of the crop, the top one hundred all time rock songs. Next Friday, the countdown finishes with the all time number one rock song. Just two more shows. You won’t want to miss finding out. Everyone’s buzzing about what the number one song will be.
The Rock Top 30, which is the source of this compilation, is the longest-running weekly rock chart anywhere, so this all time rock chart has full backing and credibility, an objectively compiled chart, not a listener-voted favorites chart. The exact period covered is from 1979 to early 2014 when the countdown started. To qualify, a song must be at number one or at its first week in a peak position in 1980 or later. There’s your universe of rock songs.
There have been just over 1500 songs finding their way to both the rock and pop charts since 1980. Most of these songs were what I call rock-to-pop crossovers. They hit their peaks on the rock chart before they peaked on the pop chart, sometimes months earlier. Every once in a while, a rock song peaks on the pop chart first. In fact, 86 times, or just over five percent of the time, rock songs were pop hits first. Here is the complete list of these songs in chronological order by pop peak in blue. Rock peak is red.
Most recently, at the bottom of the list, Lorde hit #17 pop then went on to hit number 8 rock. Find full weekly pop charts by clicking blue peak numbers. Find full rock charts by clicking red peak numbers.
In the 1980s, album rock stations were not quite ready to play the new music sometimes called new rock, new wave, and now called alternative. These songs became popular on a split-off format and on the recent video rage. Due to the heavy demand, rock stations could not ignore this new revolution and eventually played many of these songs, including Thompson Twins.
The Wallflowers is one of few groups that had two songs find pop chart peaks before rock chart peaks. These songs were promoted on both pop and rock stations early, but were better suited to rock stations where they stuck around longer to reach a peak.
Rock stations became a bit resistant to play songs by rapper Eminem. But they did play those songs and some became big rock hits. Three Eminem songs peaked on the pop chart first.
UPDATE: The top 1000 songs of all time in chart history was a blast! We made it through all one thousand songs right up to the number one song. If you missed it, you’re gonna have to wait. It will be done again and updated after the fortieth anniversary of the longest running rock charts anywhere. Stay tuned. And keep listening to Jammin Joe at Live365.
On March 22, 2014, Jammin Joe began the ultimate countdown of the Top 1000 Rock Songs of all time in chart history. Every Friday, we’ve heard 50 great rock tunes from 1980 right through to early this year — each and every one a mega-classic. This is the official countdown of the biggest songs from the Rock Top 30, the longest running weekly rock charts anywhere. Not only that, but this is the first-ever all-time publication from the rock chart. On June 15, we will hear songs #450 to #401. Complete schedule below. We are definitely having fun!
LISTEN LIVE HERE–7:00 PM US Eastern Time Friday nights! The Top 1000 Rock Songs countdown is LIVE. At other times, Jammin Joe’s station plays mostly today’s alternative, with some mix of classics and other rock songs. Saturdays at the same time, Joe spends two hours taking requests of any song on your mind –no limits– and another two hours playing the current Rock Top 20.
Thanks to the Tunecaster Harmony system, which mathematically removes the bias of contemporary chart patterns, songs have an equal chance of making the top 1000 regardless of when they came out.
Whether you like oldies or the latest songs, alternative rock or guitar rock, your favorite rock music is represented here.
Enjoy the countdown. Leave a comment! Ask a question!
Every Friday night at 7 pm US Eastern Daylight Time, Jammin Joe is counting down the top 1000 rock songs in rock chart history. This is a first-ever exclusive broadcast of the all time top 1000 rock songs from the longest-running weekly rock chart anywhere, the Tunecaster Rock Top 30. This all-time chart has never been published, so follow along with Joe at live365.com:
The countdown started March 22, 2014. Fifty songs are played every Friday night. This will run through the summer until Joe gets to the biggest rock song ever. Tonight, he’s up to song #650 and will play through to song #601.
What are all those numbers? That is the chart path of the biggest non-number one rock song in chart history. It hit #2 four times! Count ’em — four times — but it could not hit the top spot as songs rose over it and fell below it.
It’s From Yesterday by Thirty Seconds To Mars, the biggest rock song to miss number one on the weekly chart, but so big that it wound up being the top song of the entire year 2006.
In 2010, Savior by Rise Against became the top rock song of the year and the second biggest non-number one rock song in chart history. This song only peaked at number 4 on the weekly rock chart, but it spent 40 weeks in the top 30 and eventually overtook all other songs that year. To see the weekly rock chart where the song peaked, click the blue numbers.
From Yesterday is #1 here but would be #15 on the all time rock songs list with number ones. There were over 900 number one rock songs since 1979. #100 here would be #718 if you included number ones — still bigger than about 300 number one songs.
Mother’s Day is coming fast. Here are the top songs with Mother or Mama in the title in pop music from 1960 to date. (Scroll down for top Mama rock songs.)
That other mother — the mother-in-law — takes the cake as the top Mother or Mama song in pop chart history. Blue numbers are the pop chart peak. Click the peak to find the song on the chart at its pop peak.
And for the rocking mamas and their children, here are the dozen top mothers in rock chart history, 1980 to present. The blue numbers here are the rock chart peaks and take you to the weekly rock chart.
The show is scheduled to run for four hours every Friday night until it’s done. The bad news is .. this could take a long time. The good news is … We have something cool to listen to every Friday through the entire spring and into the summer!
The chart was compiled by using the Tunecaster Rock Top 30 from 1980 through early 2014. This will be the first presentation of the all time rock hits ever.
Since the all time countdown comes from the longest running weekly rock charts anywhere, you are not going to find a more comprehensive objective countdown. The chart was tabulated using the Tunecaster Harmony system, which mathematically adjusts trends in chart history so that songs have an equal chance of making the survey regardless of when they came out. This means songs from faster-moving years are not disfavored, and songs from slower-moving years are not benefited. What could be more fair?
I included a few songs here from the first segment which will be on the countdown, 7:00 PM, US Eastern Time. What a great way to start the spring.
Some like pop. Some like rock. Some like both. These are rock and pop crossover songs. I took the overall popularity of each of these songs that made both the Pop Top 30 and the Rock Top 30 and combined them. Here is the overall top 100 rock-pop crossover songs since 1980. If you listen to rock or pop, you’ll probably know all of these songs.
The number one song holds so many records, including being the biggest crossover hit of all time. Here is the “long version.”
The red number is the rock peak. Scroll over it to see the exact date. The blue number is the pop peak. Click either peak to see the actual weekly song chart. The date is the year the song peaked on the rock chart.
How come the top songs look so much like the Rock Top 200 Songs Of The 1980’s?
Rock was hugely popular on pop radio in those days. Every Breath You Take, Jump and Livin’ On A Prayer were the top songs of the year in both categories. 35 percent of pop hits were rock crossovers in 1980. By 1990, that dropped to 28 percent, 2000 to 23 percent, and 2010 bottoming-out at a mere one percent! So it’s true. 80’s rock was much more likely to cross over. Fortunately for rock fans, crossovers have returned, making up 16 percent of 2013 pop songs. Two 2013 songs made the list. I hope in the future, we see more again.
TUNECASTER 