I thought 'Zombie' would be higher too, I've heard it a lot more on the radio in recent years and it is also their biggest song on streaming and YouTube. I suppose 'Linger' is doing slightly better because of its sadder tone.

oh Linger is now #1 combined

 

1 Linger .7612 + .2466 = 1.0088

2 River 1.0000

3 Zombie .5883 +.4064 = .9947

4 Dreams .5835 + .1271 = .71

5 Craig Cavid .65

 

well nice for Cranberries to have 1,3 & 4

Zombie vcirtually tied with Linger

 

Edited January 16, 20187 yr by Bjork

and now Zombie takes the lead! 103.46% vs. 103.09% for Linger

Zombie's probably had a boost from some news articles (eg BBC News online) explaining what it's about

 

I think Linger has probably had more mainstream airplay than Zombie, whereas maybe Zombie has had lot of play from the rockier stations.

 

Who cares - they're both tunes.

It's a shame that iTunes doesn't carry as much weight as it used to and also the fact that the chart is now Fri-Thur instead of Sun-Sat otherwise these songs from The Cranberries could have been #1 contenders. I thought that I'd never heard their music but then when I typed the band's name on YouTube I saw the thumbnail for Zombie and realised that it looked familiar and once I listened to the song I realised that I heard it before during a TV programme about the 90's.

 

Being honest it's not the kind of music that I like but it would have been a good tribute for any of these songs to go to #1 and it's a terrible shame that Dolores passed away at only 46 years old :(

I think we can all agree it is a close call between these 2 songs and there is not much to choose in terms of popularity. They even originally peaked in the same #14 position (ignoring fact that Linger took a reissue to get Top 20). I do think they have held up well today, it may be a sign of low download sales but I think it does show how popular The Cranberries (and Dolores O'Riordan in particular) are and this popularity didn't always translate to high chart positions.

 

The Linger/Zombie thing is similar to The Gossip - ask anyone in the UK to name their most famous song and (if they've heard of them) they'll probably say Standing In The Way of Control, which peaked at #7 here. But in several countries it was 2009's Heavy Cross that was their one massive hit single, which only peaked low top 40 in the UK but top ten in many other places.

 

Doing a bit of research after my last post and the huge success of Zombie overseas only came several months after the UK release, in late 1994/early 1995 - in Australia it was Triple J's #1 song of the year in their Hot 100 poll. Normally if that happened a song would be re-released in the UK (like Sparks's 'When Do I Get To Sing My Way' which got reissued after it was randomly a big hit single in Germany) but it didn't seem to happen with Zombie. Happy that both it and Linger have done so well and amazing to see a song about the Northern Ireland troubles gaining so much audience.

I remember hearing Linger and Dreams on the radio a lot back in the 90s. Oddly, I had zero knowledge of "Zombie" until I scrolled through the most watched music videos on Youtube and saw it right up there.

The Linger/Zombie thing is similar to The Gossip - ask anyone in the UK to name their most famous song and (if they've heard of them) they'll probably say Standing In The Way of Control, which peaked at #7 here. But in several countries it was 2009's Heavy Cross that was their one massive hit single, which only peaked low top 40 in the UK but top ten in many other places.

 

Doing a bit of research after my last post and the huge success of Zombie overseas only came several months after the UK release, in late 1994/early 1995 - in Australia it was Triple J's #1 song of the year in their Hot 100 poll. Normally if that happened a song would be re-released in the UK (like Sparks's 'When Do I Get To Sing My Way' which got reissued after it was randomly a big hit single in Germany) but it didn't seem to happen with Zombie. Happy that both it and Linger have done so well and amazing to see a song about the Northern Ireland troubles gaining so much audience.

 

The album was pretty much permanently in the top 20 throughout '95 though so they probably felt it wasn't necessary

in Australia it was Triple J's #1 song of the year in their Hot 100 poll. Normally if that happened a song would be re-released in the UK (like Sparks's 'When Do I Get To Sing My Way' which got reissued after it was randomly a big hit single in Germany) but it didn't seem to happen with Zombie.

For what it's worth, though the Hottest 100 is a big cultural force now, it was still in its infancy in the '90s and not remotely mainstream (the station had also only just recently gone national, and wasn't widely available in regional areas where it gets a bigger market share nowadays), to the point that there was no evident sales impact through polling success, and that now there are a whole bunch of people whinging that the date has been changed because they don't remember how much that happened in the '90s. It's very difficult to even find news articles about it from back then because it really was just a radio countdown with not much prestige or interest.

 

I always attributed "Zombie"'s huge Australian success to timing. It blew up in the charts right when rock & alternative were arguably at their commercial peak, and you just had big top 10 hits from The Offspring, Silverchair, Pearl Jam & Nine Inch Nails whose success on the charts really outdoes what would be otherwise expected.

I remember hearing Linger and Dreams on the radio a lot back in the 90s. Oddly, I had zero knowledge of "Zombie" until I scrolled through the most watched music videos on Youtube and saw it right up there.

 

Honestly same. But maybe because Zombie came afterwards so I kinda checked out afterwards.

'Zombie' was always my fave. 'Linger' is nice and 'Dreams' is really good too, but her voice is so unique and is to a very acquired taste. We had their album on today at work and after the first 4 tracks, it really started to get a bit too much for me/all the songs started sounding the same. :lol: But nice to see these make an impact, especially 'Dreams', as I thought that was forgotten about. :wub:

 

Such awful news though ofc.

I remember hearing Linger and Dreams on the radio a lot back in the 90s. Oddly, I had zero knowledge of "Zombie" until I scrolled through the most watched music videos on Youtube and saw it right up there.

Yes I don't recall hearing Zombie until more recently when it appeared in itunes chart a few years ago after it was reduced to 59p. Dreams and Linger I heard in the late 90s on my parents Cranberries album along with I Still Do (must have been the Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can't We? album).

 

I think Linger has probably had more mainstream airplay than Zombie, whereas maybe Zombie has had lot of play from the rockier stations.

 

I wouldn't be surprised if this was true, Zombie is definitely rockier (and less mainstream sounding) than Linger imo.

Zombie's subject matter and video are, as brilliant as they are, very harrowing so Linger is a bit more appropriate as a tribute for various reasons, though I did always think Zombie was their signature song and was by far the one I've heard the most. Hopefully one of them can stay top 40 for Friday!

I was really under the impression that 'Zombie' was by far their most well-known, it's the one I always hear around (even though 'Linger' looks like a bigger hit at the time).

 

Love both though, 'Linger' is pretty up there with favourite songs.

Edited January 16, 20187 yr by Tawdry Hepburn

for instance in the US, Linger is their only big hit, went to #8

but I think Zombie was never released as single in the US, a common strategy in the mid-90s by labels to sell more albums, many classics like Don't Speak they never charted

All three are just about equally popular in the US too I'd say, they're close together in the top 5 on US iTunes. 'Dreams' is the one I seem to hear on the radio the most!

Sigrid still #3 without The Cranberries, I’m really surprised at how well she’s doing. I thought she’d shoot up the chart for a day or two after the Sound of 2018 win but she’s still hanging around! Hit in the making

133. Editors - Magazine

566. Bleachers - Alfie's Song (Not So Typical Love Song)

Here in Finland Zombie is easily their signature song. It was so popular that No Need to Argue reached #1 on albums mainly because of it.

133. Editors - Magazine

566. Bleachers - Alfie's Song (Not So Typical Love Song)

 

I like the Alfie's Song, I think the soundtrack will be wonderful.