Robbed hit of the week 8/24/20 - Silverchair's "Abuse Me"...

 

 

"Abuse Me" - Silverchair

from the album Freak Show (1997)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: ineligible to chart

Billboard Hot 100 Airplay peak: 44

This week's "robbed hit" comes from the Australian post-grunge rock band Silverchair, who landed a top-40 pop radio hit in America in the fall of 1995 with their breakthrough single "Tomorrow". In 1997, the trio of Daniel Johns, Ben Gillies, and Chris Joannou returned with their sophomore effort Freak Show. The first song from the set promoted to radio in the U.S. was "Abuse Me", written by Johns and produced by Nick Launay. Addressing the band's critics and "haters", the group ends up relishing and not caring about it...

Since "Abuse Me" wasn't put out commercially as a "single" in the States, the song was unable to place on Billboard's official pop Hot 100 chart. However the song got enough mainstream radio love to just miss the top 40 of the airplay portion of that tally in February of 1997. The track was a big radio hit on rock radio, reaching #4 on both the Mainstream and Alternative Rock charts in Billboard magazine. Internationally, the single made the top ten in Canada (#7) and Australia (#9), while scoring a top-40 hit in the UK at #40. The Freak Show album went to #12, going on to sell over a half million copies.

In America, the next "single" would be "Freak", which had already gone to #1 in their homeland. Here, it was a moderate hit on rock radio, on both the Mainstream (#25) and Alternative (#29) lists. In Australia, a third release, "Cemetary", peaked at #5, while a fourth, "The Door", landed in the Australian top-40 at #25. 

(Click below to see the rest of the post)

Here's the trio appearing on Letterman to promote the album...

and lastly, live in their Australian homeland in 1999