Religion has always addressed the question of life after death. Thus, old mythology is full of protagonists that undergo resurrection such as Orpheus´ Euridike. And probably the most famous figure that finds his way back to life is to be found in the Bible.

However, one does not need the help of God to come back to life after death. Even more modern and secular literature and movies still address the topic of resurrection, not being able to free themselves from this old fascination. Here are some secularized ways in which creative authors have made resurrection work.

10. The Matrix

“The Matrix”, written and directed in 1999 by the Wachowskis, is often characterized as a deeply philosophical film, praised for its richness of references that range from Platonic to postmodern theories. However, it is not only philosophy but also the motif of Christ that plays a significant role in the movie.

When Neo, the movie´s cyber-hacker-hero, gets shot right into his heart several times by the system´s agents, no viewer can possibly doubt that he is dead. Simultaneously, while this is happening in the Matrix, his passive body in the real world is shown in agony. Then, his heart stops beating. Neo stops breathing. “He is gone”, one of the agents confirms.

Trinity, nonetheless, a rebel against the simulation-system just as Neo, does not trust in the eternity of his death. She leans over Neo´s body and presents him the reason for her doubt. Neo cannot be dead because, first, the Oracle told her that she would fall in love with “The One” and that, second, she loves Neo. These two are enough to revive Neo: Logic and Love. Here, resurrection and the gain of even more supernatural powers go hand in hand.

9. Romeo and Juliet

“Romeo and Juliet” by William Shakespeare contains the probably most tragic resurrection-scene – because its coming back to life does not end well. It does end, in fact, in death.

Juliet takes a sleeping-drink which lets her appear dead for 24 hours, in order to escape the planned marriage with Paris. That is because Juliet is in love with Romeo who later finds her in her grave and, out of despair in face of her sudden death, kills himself with poison.

In that moment, Juliet, who by almost everyone was assumed to be dead, awakens. However, seeing her beloved Romeo poisoned, she kisses him and now takes her just regained life – this time, without chance of resurrection.

Though Juliet´s resurrection has been called a “pseudo-resurrection” because she was never actually dead, Shakespeare´s figure cannot be missed on this list for both the play´s big impact on other resurrection scenes and for Shakespeare´s clever way of making resurrection rationally explicable to secularized readers.

8. Snow White

Ferocities and murder were not anything alien to the Brothers Grimm, who during the 19th century collected and published some of the now best-known folk stories. Their first collection „Children and Household Tales“ was published in 1812.

Though a lot of good figures have to die in their stories, the chance of them resurrecting later is actually pretty high, as in the classical fairy tale usually everything turns out well.

There is not only Sleeping Beauty who due to an evil curse falls into a deep sleep and will not be awaken until 100 years later by the kiss of a prince. One also has to think of “Brother and Sister”, the story of dead Sister returning home from death every night to care for her child and for her roebuck until one day her husband revives her by directly addressing her as his “dear wife“. If someone still loves you though you are dead, if one even loves you as a corpse, then this love has enough power to give you back your life, these fairy tales seem to suggest.

Even more popular than Sleeping Beauty and Sister is another female figure, Snow White, who gets poisoned by an apple that the envious queen intentionally gives her. After eating the apple, Snow White drops dead immediately. The dwarves she lived with bury her in a glass made coffin but death does not hold its pray.

After “a long, long time”, a prince appears who wants to take her corpse home. No, it is not a kiss that revives her as we sometimes tend to think but his stumbling over a tree-stump, the coffin in his hands. The poisonous piece of apple comes out of Snow White´s throat, she opens her eyes and is „once more alive“. Marriage and happiness follow.

Again, it is not God but love that brings this figure back to life. A martyr-like figure that is innocent and that had to die simply for being good and beautiful, overthrown by evil. Luckily, evil does not have the last word here.

7. Vertigo

Often claimed to be not only the best film of director Alfred Hitchcock but also the best film ever made, „Vertigo“ from 1958 definitely is a classic of psychological suspense. Like in “Romeo and Juliet“, it also contains a double-murder: the resurrection is only temporal and later leads to an even more cruel, real and unchangeable death.

Detective Scottie falls in love with Madeleine, his friend´s wife, who he is supposed to follow. Because Scottie suffers from acrophobia (fear of heights), he cannot prevent Madeleine´s death, when one day she jumps from a church tower. Scottie feels guilty, breaks down and even becomes clinically depressed.

However, years later, he sees a girl who reminds him a lot of Madeleine. Still obsessed with his dead love, he forces Judy to change her clothes until she resembles Madeleine.

A flashback tells us that Scottie is not only fantasizing due to his trauma, but that Judy and Madeleine are in fact the same person. Scottie had been the victim of a murder-complot arranged by his old friend: He had to witness Madeleine´s “suicide” which was in fact his friend´s murder of his wife. Judy, who had acted as if she would be Madeleine, was never dead.

For Scottie, of course, this resurrection must remain ambivalent: On the one hand, he finds out that he is not guilty of Judy´s death because this loved woman never died, but on the other hand, he has to face the fact that Judy has never been the person he thought she was. Driven crazy by this fact, Scottie forces Judy up the bell tower. There, she admits her deceit and begs Scottie to forgive her because she loves him. However, suddenly a shadow appears on the trapdoor of the tower. Judy steps back in fear, falling into death.

Scottie has to live through the same traumatizing experience twice. He looses Judy twice. Her resurrection does not lead anywhere else but to a second death.

6. Hamlet

One popular way of staging resurrection without having to employ God is to let not the real person come back from death but his ghost or spirit. No one has let this ghost revive in such an active and world-changing way as Shakespeare did.

His tragedy “Hamlet”, one of the most powerful and influential tragedies of world-literature, begins with two sentries encountering a ghost that looks like the old King, Hamlet´s dead father. Later, Hamlet is even able to talk to the Ghost who is indeed his dead father and who tells him that he was poisoned by his brother, Claudius, who was driven by lust for the crown and for Hamlet´s mother, Gertrude. Then, the ghost disappears letting Hamlet swear to revenge his murder.

This revival-scene changed literature forever. By many critics it is considered to be the beginning of modernity, as it lead to the birth of the modern subject, to Hamlet´s split between himself and society, between inside and outside, between thinking and acting. The revival from death causes time´s being „out of joint“, thus, existential doubts, nostalgic memory and the young protagonist´s inability and immobility to act.

The end of this tragedy then could not be more tragic: Though Hamlet manages to kill Claudius, he accidentally kills Polonius and Laertes, too. His mother Gertrude poisons herself by accident and Ophelia kills herself in sorrow. Thus, the King´s revival from death leads to the death of everyone else.

5. The Green Henry

“The Green Henry” is one of the most important novels of formation (Bildungsroman) of the 19th century. Written by the Swiss author Gottfried Keller, it focuses on the development of young Henry who wants to become a landscape-painter.

However, Keller has written two versions of this novel, the first published in 1855, and the second, an extensively revised version of the original one, in 1879.

What is most astonishing about both versions: In 1855 the novel ends with Henry´s death due to an unbearable suffering and feelings of guilt. Surprisingly, more than two decades later Keller decides to let Henry live. He ends his second version of Henry´s adventurous but pessimistic journey with a happy love-story and Henry´s success in work. Thus, Henry was dead for Keller´s readers for exactly 24 years but finally achieved resurrection and even happiness via his author who just made up his mind.

Keller´s fascination for death also gave birth to one of the most striking child-characters in literature: the abused girl Meretlein, whose story prefaces Heinrich´s main narrative and who gets buried alive. Literally rising from the dead, she wreaks a last moment of anxiety in the village by running around, followed by plenty of kids who want to catch „the corpse”, and finally dropping dead again.

4. Misery

Steven King´s psychological horror novel “Misery“ from 1987 does not only tell the story of the writer Paul Sheldon who is imprisoned by his crazy fan Annie Wilkes and who is violently forced by her to write a new book modifying the old story of his romance novels about the Victorian-era character of Misery Chastain.

King´s „Misery“ also deals with an author´s duty towards his fans, with his God-like power to let his characters die and revive.

What is so astonishing about King´s novel is exactly how it ends and which conclusions we are supposed to draw from that. One understands perfectly well that Paul tries to write „Misery´s return“ after his kidnapper got so mad at him about Misery´s death in the end of „Misery´s child“. In order to please Annie and to escape his own death, he lets Misery return to the world. In a highly dramatic scene, she rises from her grave.

However, Scottie does not only let Misery live for Annie. After Paul finally manages to kill Annie and to escape from the horrors of her house, he indeed publishes „Misery´s return“, for everyone to read it. By that act he admits that Annie was right, that Misery should never have died. Thus, after Misery was dead for the world of Scottie´s readers, he gives her back to them. Misery´s resurrection required Scottie´s suffering, his survival, and Annie´s death.

Nominated for the World Fantasy Award for the Best Novel, “Misery“ was made into a Hollywood film and a Broadway play of the same name, making this remarkable resurrection-story public to an even wider audience.

3. Gandalf

One cannot truly die if one has not yet completed his mission in life. Death has to send one back. At least, this is the case in Tolkien´s ‘Lord of the Rings“. Gandalf, one of the most important figures of the novel, dies in a battle with the last Balrog. He falls and slides „into the abyss“, his last words being “Fly, you fools!” while in horrible fall. Then he is gone and his companions believe him dead.

However, Gandalf does not remain dead and later gets send back to Middle-earth with increased power and authority in order to kill Sauron.

After he finally accomplishes this task, Gandalf never faces a second death. At least not literally. One could still see his and his companions final departure from Middle-earth in a ship as an infinite death or a never-ending dying, as they all pass to a new unknown world, to stay there forever.

2. Harry Potter

Harry Potter´s death is hovering above all seven books of J.K. Rowlings famous fantasy-series. In the first book, Voldemort tries to kill Harry when he is still a baby but Harry´s mother achieves to prevent that act by sacrificing herself. However, Voldemort´s goal throughout all books is to see Harry dead.

For years, readers have feared and trembled with their favourite protagonist, waiting for Rowling to write him an adequate end. – An end in which he would live or die?

Rowling was clever enough to satisfy all of us, the drama-addicted and the harmony-seeking: Harry both dies and lives. After Voldemort kills him in front of his crew, Harry finds himself in a sort of middle-state between life and death: There, he encounters his dead schoolmaster Dumbledore´s spirit who tells him that the Horcrux inside Harry has now been destroyed but not so has his life and that it would be up to him, Harry, whether he wants to resurrect or continue his way to death. Harry decides to live – and has his surprising revival in front of all his friends who already believed him dead.

1. E.T.

The most affecting and undoubtedly the most Christ-like figure which made all of us cry as kids is E.T., the Extra-Terrestrial in Steven Spielberg´s heart-breaking 1982 science fiction film.

After being left on earth by his crew, E.T. is found by the 10-year-old Eliott and establishes a close relationship with him. Helped by his sister and brother, Eliott cares for E.T. and hides him from government-agents.

Still, one day the agents break into Eliott´s house and find the Alien. At that moment E.T. is already weakened by his suffering from homesickness. He dies, while he is getting examined by the agents and their machines.

However, when the government-agents want to carry his corpse away, Eliott notices that the dead chrysanthemum, the plant that E.T. had previously revived, is coming back to life. He realizes that E.T., too, returns to life and his people to earth.

In the last scene, the kids bring E.T. to the forest, where he boards his space-ship, not without having tears in his eyes and not without taking his chrysanthemum plant with him – the plant that died and resurrected with him.

By Marie-Luise Goldmann – a PhD-student in German Literature at New York University.

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Scientists can be a strange bunch of people. Some scour for answers to some of the great mysteries of the universe, or work towards cutting-edge technological breakthroughs. Others give cannabis to traumatized elephants and fit cuttlefish with 3D glasses.

Scientists are responsible for all manner of bizarre, off-the-wall discoveries. In recent months, researchers have, for example, created iridescent chocolate, built an artificial sun and studied the effects of mixing Coke and Mentos on top of a mountain. Here are ten of the weirdest discoveries.

10 Psychological Experiments That Will Blow Your Mind

10 Levitating Boat Floats Upside Down

Scientists in France have achieved a remarkable feat of science, getting a toy boat to float upside down along a layer of liquid suspended in air. According to Emmanuel Fort, researchers at the Higher School of Industrial Physics and Chemistry in Paris were playing about with their equipment when they essentially stumbled upon this striking phenomenon. As he told reporters, “we had no idea it would work.”

Held in position by a delicate balance of forces and vibrations, the boat appears to defy gravity. This bizarre effect allows the toy to sail the wrong way round on the underside of a layered mix of glycerol and silicon oil.

At the time the team were investigating the effects of certain vibrations on the behavior of water. With the right frequencies bubbles can be made to float down, and heavy object can be stopped from sinking.^[1]

9 Iridescent Chocolate

Sparkling rainbow chocolate sounds like something out of Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory. But now, thanks to one Los Angeles-based physicist, iridescent chocolate has arrived. The shimmering confectionery has been cooked up, not by Oompa Loompas, but by Samy Kamkar. Kamkar achieves this dazzling effect not with any special ingredient or coating, but by perforating the surface of his chocolate with an array of tiny holes. These holes, known as a diffraction grating, scatter beams of light as they pass through, giving the chocolate its multi-colored appearance

Kamkar began by 3D printing a mushroom-shaped mold full of microscopic ridges and grooves. He then poured tempered chocolate into the mold and left it to set in a vacuum chamber. Although this sounds incredibly hi-tech, Kamkar explained that his iridescent treats can be whipped up by anyone. “Anyone can do this at home,” he told reporters back in May. “There’s no coating. There’s no special ingredient. It’s the surface texture of the chocolate itself that’s producing it.”^[2]

8 Mixing Coke And Mentos On Top Of A Mountain

 

As any young person can tell you, drop a few Mentos mints in a bottle of Coke and it creates one almighty fizz. But in 2020, a Spring Arbor University chemistry professor and a Colorado high school teacher decided to test the power of mints and fizzy drink at over 10,000 feet above sea level. In fact, the pair repeated their experiment at a number of remote locations, including California’s Death Valley and Pikes Peak in the Rocky Mountains.

Fizzy drinks like Coke are packed full of tiny bubbles of carbon dioxide. When you pick a bottle off the shelf, the gas is dissolved in the liquid under pressure. But as soon as you open the cap, the pressure changes and some of the CO2 escapes into the air with a little froth. Adding Mentos into the bottle allows a much larger quantity of gas to escape, hence the enormous plume of foam. Mentos shells are covered in microscopic ridges which trap incredibly small bubbles of air, so the carbon dioxide in the Coke has a much larger amount of air to shoot into.

By testing the Coke-Mentos experiment at different air pressures, the pair deduced that the holes in a Mentos mint must measure two to seven micrometers across. The two scientists were even able to publish a research paper in the Journal of Scientific Education.^[3]

7 Why We All Subconsciously Judge Ugly People

 

Like it or not, you judge people on the way they look. So do I. So do all of us, according to new research from psychologists at the University of Melbourne. Prejudice against people that we find aesthetically unpleasant is an inbuilt response that we use to protect ourselves from disease.

Although ugliness is subjective, there are certain traits that are widely considered to be repulsive, like bodily fluids and skin conditions. But, the researchers point out, these ugly traits are also potentially infectious. Disgust, they argue, is an impulsive defense set up by our behavioral immune system to keep us safe and healthy.

However this response is said to surpass logical thinking. In the majority of cases, unattractive people are no more contagious than attractive people, and yet we instinctively behave as if they are riddled with germs. Unconscious bias against those with less than flattering appearances is a widespread issue that can have a seriously impact on people’s lives. Science has shown that unattractive people are less employable, less successful and are more likely to be sentenced in court. Challenging our psychological prejudices is important, the researchers argue, and it begins with becoming aware of them.^[4]

6 Polish Zoo Relaxes Their Elephants With Cannabis

 

An elephant never forgets, but perhaps marijuana might help take the sting off unpleasant memories.

Warsaw Zoo found that their elephants were feeling agitated after Erna, the elder of the herd, sadly died back in March. In the months following Erna’s passing, three of the youngest elephants began displaying signs of stress and discomfort. So the zoo has decided to calm the animals with CBD, one of the main calming chemicals found in cannabis.

In August, staff at Warsaw Zoo announced that they would be giving the substance to Fredzia, the elephant most affected by Erna’s death. They announced that they were monitoring the effects by testing Fredzia’s feces and bodily fluids for cortisol, a hormone commonly linked to stress. Eventually they hope to move all three elephants onto CBD to help them process their grief.^[5]

10 Nonconsensual Experiments That Led To Medical Advancements

5 Mice With Milkshakes Help Scientists Understand Autism

 

Mice, milkshakes and autism. Three things that have more in common that you might imagine. In October, scientists at The Florey Institute in Australia unveiled a rodent-based experiment that they say has provided them with a new insight into neurodivergent behavior. Dr Emma Burrows and Shuting Li came up with the experiment by modifying a popular attention test known as the Posner task. The researchers tested a range of mice, some of which had been genetically modified to display autistic characteristics.

It is not easy to test the attention of a mouse. Many scientists have tried, but more often than not the mouse loses interest and starts fidgeting and moving about. To stop them from wandering off, Li placed each of her mice in a testing box and kept them in place with laser beams “like a diamond heist”. Then, on a screen, a stimulus would flash up, and the mice were rewarded with strawberry milkshake if they could prod it with their noses. Sometimes Burrows and Li would try to trick the mice into thinking the target was on the other side of the screen. As you would expect, the mice were a little slower whenever the researchers fooled them.

Feeding mice milkshake for poking their noses into a screen sounds rather quaint, but the researchers believe it could improve their understanding of neurodivergent behavior. What’s more, it offers fresh potential for further research into the effects of drugs and genetics on autism and similar conditions.^[6]

4 Two Chatbots On A First Date

 

Dating can be difficult at the best of times, but a first date is especially hard when you and your date are both digital chatbots. In 2020 two AI-powered avatars – Kuki, a blue-haired Leeds United fan, and Blenderbot a Facebook-loving coin collector – were sent on a two-week long date together to see if they could mimic actual human conversation.

For two strangers, Kuki and Blenderbot discussed a wide range of topics, including hobbies, religion, sport, politics, and whether the royal family are actually a group of shape-shifting reptile aliens. Blenderbot, it seems, may have picked up a few odd ideas from some of the darker recesses of social media. At one point he told his date that he had “killed many people”, and described Hitler as a “great man” and an inspiration. If you ask me, Kuki could do a lot better.^[7]

3 South Korea’s Record-Breaking Artificial Sun

 

In December 2020, scientists at KSTAR unveiled a new world record for a high-temperature ‘artificial Sun’. The team’s replica star reached an eye-watering 100 million degrees Celsius and maintained that heat for twenty seconds – doubling the previous record.

KSTAR – short for the Korea Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research – deploys magnetic fields to create a strange form of matter known as plasma. The plasma is then heated up to immense temperatures comparable to the Sun. Researchers hope that one day this method can be used to generate power via nuclear fusion. “The technologies required for long operations of 100 million-degree plasma are the key to the realization of fusion energy,” explained Si-Woo Yoon, a nuclear physicist at KSTAR. However there is much work to be done before they can realizes their goal of achieving fusion power. By 2025, staff at KSTAR hope to be able to maintain 100 million degrees for as long as five minutes.^[8]

2 Human Gene For Monkey Mind Expansion

 

Scientists have found a way to increase the size of a monkey’s brain using a gene found in humans. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics introduced the gene to 101-day-old marmoset fetuses. The gene, known as ARHGAP11B, has been shown to stimulate the growth of stem cells in the brain. Scientists reckon that it had an instrumental role in the history of human evolution.

The marmosets soon responded to the foreign gene. Researchers saw a marked enlargement in the neocortex region of the brain – the area responsible for reasoning and language. Similar experiments have been conducted before with mice and ferrets, but this is the first study to introduce the gene to non-human primates.^[9]

1 Cuttlefish Given 3D Glasses For Sight Experiment

 

At the start of the year, researchers decided to put a pair of 3D glasses on a cuttlefish to study how they attack their prey. Scientists at the University of Minnesota showed the underwater mollusks footage of tasty-looking shrimp to better understand how they judge distance before deciding to attack.

The most difficult task, the researchers admitted, was getting the cuttlefish to accept the glasses. The team were worried that the animals would either tear them off or spray their tanks with ink. So they had to devise a special method, which involved gentle handling, distraction, and bribery with a large amount of shrimp. As Dr Trevor Wardill explained to the press, “you’ve got to get in the mind of the cuttlefish and make them happy.”

Even by the standards of marine life, which is overwhelmingly odd, cuttlefish have some very strange eyes. The wavy-looking slits can actually move independently, giving the mollusks a 360-degree field of vision. But the scientists wanted to test their perception of depth. Some animals, like humans and praying mantises, are able to calculate distance by calculating slight differences between what each eye sees, using a technique called stereopsis. After their absurd experiment, the scientists concluded that cuttlefish also triangulate distance using stereopsis.^[10]

Top 10 Outlandish Science Experiments Performed On Animals

The Billboard charts can be a funny thing, making certain musical acts appear bigger or smaller than they actually are. Some of the most notorious supposed “one-hit wonders” such as Vanilla Ice, MC Hammer, or Soulja Boy technically charted two top-10 hits. On the other hand, some of the most legendary musical acts of all time surprisingly had only just one U.S. top-10 hit throughout their entire career.

While the charts measure the weekly popularity of songs and albums, some aspects of music business success prove harder to quantify. An act can sell out arenas and stadiums, prove a lasting cultural influence, become a household name—but often, those accolades accrue over the long term, rather than manifesting in short-term sales and airplay figures.

Here are iconic bands and stars who, despite their enduring status, surprisingly only had one top-10 single hit on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

Related: Top 10 Tragic One-Hit Wonders

10 Weird Al Yankovic

You used to know him from his oversized glasses and mustaches, then you knew him from his shoulder-length hair and Hawaiian shirts. The master spoofer has remained relevant and part of the cultural firmament for almost four decades through his continual parodies of popular songs. His most recent tour, titled the Strings Attached Tour, included a full symphony orchestra backing. Lin-Manuel Miranda, the writer and star of Broadway’s Hamilton, even called Weird Al his childhood hero.

Parodying the gangsta rap track “Ridin’ Dirty” by Chamillionaire featuring Krayzie Bone, Yankovic’s biggest song is 2006’s comparatively intellectual “White & Nerdy” at #9. While the original song referenced run-ins with the cops and fancy cars, Yankovic’s lyrics referenced MIT, Dungeons & Dragons, action figures, Stephen Hawking, the infinitely repeating mathematical concept of pi, Minesweeper, the computer coding language Pascal, vector calculus, the Star Trek language of Klingon, pocket protectors, the high school chess team, and the Renaissance Faire.

Mimicking Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” shot for shot, Yankovic’s next biggest hit was 1983’s early-MTV-era parody “Eat It,” reaching #12. His fellow gangsta rap parody “Amish Paradise,” spoofing “Gangsta’s Paradise” by Coolio featuring LV, peaked at #53.^[1]

9 Metallica

Despite their last six consecutive albums all topping the chart, most recently 2016’s Hardwired… to Self-Destruct, James Hetfield’s and Lars Ulrich’s pioneering heavy metal band was always a little too loud for singles chart success. While they can be trusted to sell out arenas on their world tours, their biggest song was 1996’s “Until It Sleeps,” which reached #10, in fact, preventing the listener from getting much sleep.

Their next closest songs included 1991’s “Enter Sandman” at #16 and 1992’s “Nothing Else Matters” at #32. Often named one of the greatest heavy metal songs of all time, 1986’s “Master of Puppets” was only released as a promotional single for airplay and not a commercial single for purchase, making it ineligible to chart under rules in place at the time.

Still, the band earned their own standalone installment of the musical video game series Guitar Hero, one of only three groups afforded the honor—along with Aerosmith and Van Halen.^[2]

8 Johnny Cash

The Man in Black wrote simple songs, sung simply, connecting viscerally with audiences and turning him into a legend… but not necessarily on the singles charts. His biggest hit, 1969’s “A Boy Named Sue,” settled for the runner-up slot on the weekly Billboard chart behind “Honky Tonk Women” by the Rolling Stones.

Another Rolling Stone—not the band, but the magazine—ranked Cash’s “I Walk the Line” as the greatest country song of all time, calling it “the defining moment for country’s most iconic figure.” Yet it only peaked at #17. Other iconic hits included 1963’s “Ring of Fire” reaching the same position, while 1968’s “Folsom Prison Blues” stalled out at #32.^[3]

Cash’s song “I’ve Been Everywhere” detailed all the places he’d been on his life’s travels, but a trip to the top of the Billboard Hot 100 chart never appeared on the itinerary.

7 Grateful Dead

Fronted by Jerry Garcia, the perpetually touring band was primarily famous for their massive hours-long live shows and the cult following of “Deadheads” that resulted.

The band’s biggest hit was 1987’s “Touch of Grey” at #9, while their next closest was 1971’s “Truckin’” at #64. Their lead singer’s legacy lives on through the Ben & Jerry’s ice cream flavor Cherry Garcia, the company’s second-biggest seller of 2020, behind only Half Baked. Although based on their names, both flavors seem like ones Garcia would have enjoyed in life.

Another fun fact: the band also financially sponsored Lithuania’s 1992 Olympic basketball team since the team otherwise couldn’t afford to travel to the competition. The team wore tie-dyed uniforms in the band’s honor and ended up winning the bronze medal behind the slightly more famous U.S. Dream Team.^[4]

6 Oasis

Featuring Ringo Starr’s son Zak Starkey on drums, the band led by brothers Noel and Liam Gallagher notched eight chart-topping songs in their native United Kingdom. About 2.5 million people sought tickets for the band’s 1996 concerts at Knebworth House, more than four percent of the UK’s population at the time. But while they were undoubtedly big in the United Kingdom, they weren’t quite as huge on this side of the pond.

Their biggest U.S. hit, “Wonderwall,” peaked at #8 in 1996. Their next highest hit, “Don’t Look Back in Anger,” reached #55 that same year. Various singles which topped the British charts, including “Some Might Say,” “All Around the World,” “Go Let It Out,” and “Lyla,” failed to even crack the top 100 in the States.

Today, the Gallagher brothers aren’t even on speaking terms. In an interview with the magazine GQ, Noel said of Liam, “He’s the angriest man you’ll ever meet. He’s like a man with a fork in a world of soup.” ^[5]

5 Pink Floyd

Led by Roger Waters, the band was named for a portmanteau of blues acts Pink Anderson and Floyd Council. Between “The Dark Side of the Moon” and “The Wall,” the band claims not one but two of the 50 bestselling albums of all time. Only a few other acts can make the same claim, such as The Beatles and Whitney Houston.

Yet Pink Floyd’s album-oriented rock often proved unfriendly for radio station airplay, with radio’s focus on tight melodies versus the band’s long meandering instrumentals and solos. The group actually topped the chart with “Another Brick in the Wall (Part II)” in 1980. The next closest they came to replicating that success was 1973’s “Money” at #13.

Though their albums’ success arguably came at the expense of their singles chart success, they still ended up rolling in the “money” anyway. ^[6]

4 Garth Brooks

Country music would occasionally top the all-genre Hot 100 chart during the ‘50s, ‘60s, ‘70s, and ‘80s. But by the ‘90s, the parallel takeovers of rap, pop, and hip-hop essentially prevented country music from reaching its prior success on that metric. As a result, the single biggest country act since 1990 only earned one top-10 song. And here’s the craziest part: it wasn’t even with a country song.

While Garth Brooks was a force to be reckoned with on the albums chart, including spending a stunning 18 weeks at #1 with 1991’s album “Ropin’ the Wind,” his highest-charting song was 1999’s “Lost in You” at #5. The pop ballad, featuring little to no recognizably country elements, was technically credited to “Garth Brooks as Chris Gaines” during a brief and bizarre vanity project where Brooks pretended to be an alter ego, even though everybody knew it was him.

Brooks’s next biggest song was 2001’s “Wrapped Up in You” at #46. In January, he performed “Amazing Grace” at President Joe Biden’s inauguration despite being a Republican. “I might be the only Republican at this place,” he said about the inauguration, which also included performances by artists including John Legend, Jennifer Lopez, and Lady Gaga, “but it’s about reaching across and loving one another.” ^[7]

3 The Who

Almost every other Super Bowl halftime show act has earned multiple #1 hits, plus even more top-10 hits. Although The Who felt every bit as massive as some of those other headlining acts, perhaps even bigger in some cases, this was never quite reflected on the singles chart. Led by Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend and originally named The Detours, their success relied more on the album chart. The group pioneered the concept of the concept album with such storytelling releases as Tommy and Quadrophenia.

The group’s biggest song, “I Can See for Miles,” reached #9 in 1967. Their next closest hits included 1970’s “See Me, Feel Me” at #12, 1971’s “Won’t Get Fooled Again” at #15, and 1969’s “Pinball Wizard” at #19. Perhaps just as important for their modern cultural legacy, they were parodied on The Simpsons as a band called “The Whom.”

Still, the actual band’s lack of a chart-topping song disproves Abbott and Costello’s claim that “Who’s on first.” ^[8]

2 Led Zeppelin

Despite notching six chart-topping albums between 1969 and 1979, the band was never quite as commercially successful on the singles chart.

The band, which coined the catchphrase “get the led out,” was originally called the New Yardbirds. They changed their name after a conversation among the members about how the nascent group’s attempts at stardom might “go down like a lead balloon.” Led by Jimmy Page and Robert Plant, they changed “balloon” to “zeppelin” and altered the spelling of “lead” to “led” so people wouldn’t pronounce the word to rhyme with “need.”

Peaking at #4, their highest charting song was “Whole Lotta Love” in 1970. Their next closest song, “Black Dog,” reached #15 in 1972. Other iconic tracks like “Immigrant Song” peaked at #16, while “Stairway to Heaven” wasn’t released as a commercial single, rendering it unable to chart under rules in place at the time.^[9]

1 Nirvana

As the ambassadors of grunge, the Seattle trio of Kurt Cobain, Dave Grohl, and Kurt Novoselic redefined what rock music could sound like.

Named after a brand of deodorant worn by lead singer Cobain’s girlfriend at the time, Nirvana’s breakthrough hit “Smells Like Teen Spirit” proved a cultural watershed. Everything about it stood in sharp contrast to the dominant sounds and looks of the era, from the nihilistic lyrics to the mumbled delivery to the band’s intentionally unkempt appearance in the music video. Rolling Stone named it one of the 10 greatest songs of all time and the only such song released outside the narrow 1958-71 window.

While the track reached #6 in 1992, the band’s next biggest hits, “Come as You Are” and “Lithium,” peaked at #32 and #64 that same year. Parent album “Nevermind,” with its iconic cover of a baby in a swimming pool chasing after a dollar bill, nonetheless became one of the biggest-selling and most heralded albums of all time. ^[10]

All these acts prove that slow and steady can win the race in the end. Will any more contemporary music acts win the contest for long-term cultural influence over their more immediately high-charting peers? Stay tuned for a few decades to find out.