Songoftheday 1/9/20 - It's twelve o'clock and it's a wonderful day, I know you hate me but I'll ask anyway...

"Tomorrow" - Silverchair
from the album Frogstomp (1995)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: ineligible to chart
Billboard Hot 100 Airplay peak: #28 (one week)
Weeks in the Hot 100 Airplay Top-40: 11

Today's song of the day comes from the Australian heavy metal band Silverchair, who came together as young schoolmates in the city of Newcastle. With lead singer/guitarist Daniel Johns, bassist Chris Joannou, and drummer Ben Gillies, the trio recorded a demo of what would become their breakthrough hit "Tomorrow", which won a national song competition in 1994, when all three were only about 15 years old each. From that, the band was signed to Sony Records, and released an EP of four songs including "Tomorrow", before having the song re-recorded for the American market. As the lead single of their first full-length album Frogstomp, the song was promoted to radio, but not made available commercially, causing the top-40 radio hit to not appear on the official American Top-40 list. It was a big omission, but by all means not a surprising one.

"Tomorrow" became Silverchair's first and biggest hit on Billboard, reaching the top-40 in September of 1995. The song spent three weeks each at #1 on their Mainstream and Modern Rock radio charts. Internationally, the single topped the charts in their native Australia as well. The band's follow-up radio offering, "Pure Massacare", made the top 20 on the Mainstream (#12) and Modern (#17) rock radio list, but stalled down at #72 on the Pop Airplay list because it was not available as a single. However, the song went to #2 on both their native Australia and neighboring New Zealand. A third offering, "Israel's Song", slipped on to the Mainstream Rock list at #39, while Down Under the song went to #11 in Australia and #12 in New Zealand. The trio nabbed a fourth top-40 hit in their country with "Shade" (#28 Aus).

During the course of promoting this album, the three amigos earned their high school papers, and had embarked on a tour to celebrate the signing of this album throughout the year. When they returned, Silverchair has enough material for a second album, Freak Show. The first single "Freak" topped the Australia charts while granting the band their first and biggest top-40 hit in the UK at #34. Second radio offering "Abuse Me" (again not released as a single) also made the airplay top-40 at #44, while getting to #4 on both the Mainstream and Modern Rock radio lists (it scored a second British top-40 hit at #40). In Canada, it was by far their biggest success at #7.

Their third disc for Sony to complete their contract, Neon Ballroom, contained the track "Anthem For The Year 2000", which in 1999 had made the top-20 on the Mainstream (#15) and Modern (#12) rock radio charts, whilc scoring another top ten hit in their home country at #3. The trio then created their own label for Australia, while in the Americas they switched to Atlantic Records, for their next release Diorama. Their momentum hadn't slowed, racking up four more top-40 hits in Australia including two top tenners with "The Greatest View" reaching #3 in 2002 (the song would eventually reach American shores placing at #36 on the Mainstream Rock chart in 2008). After touring behind the record, the band announced a hiatus that would last until 2005, when they released their most recent album Young Modern. The album landed at #1 again in Australia, making every single studio album a chart-topper in their home country, while the lead single "Straight Lines" earned the band their third #1 single in Australia; the song topped out at a respectable #12 in the U.S. But again, after an attempt to complete a sixth album stopped short, the trio amicably put themselves on another "indefinite" hiatus in 2011, not ruling out anything, but so far holding true, with the three going off on their own musical and non-musical projects. Daniel Johns of course has been the most prominent, first landing a top 40 hit in Australia as a featured artist on rapper 360's "Impossible" in 2014 (#24 Aus). A year later he released a solo album, Talk, which peaked at #2 there, but the sole single "Cool On Fire", an electro-pop nugget far from his work with Silverchair, only rose to #68.

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The band played the pre-show of the Video Music Awards on MTV in 1995...