Peter Murphy: The Bauhaus Singer's Solo Hit "Cuts You Up"

Photo: Robman94 / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/). Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Peter-Murphy-Musician.jpg

Peter Murphy is an English singer and songwriter, the vocalist of the post-punk band Bauhaus, which he co-founded with Daniel Ash in 1978. U-Rock® has logged 1,779 plays of "Cuts You Up."

After Bauhaus

According to Wikipedia, after Bauhaus broke up, Murphy formed Dalis Car with Mick Karn, bassist of the band Japan, and released The Waking Hour (1984). His solo albums include Should the World Fail to Fall Apart (1986) and Love Hysteria (1988). He later moved from London to Turkey, recorded Dust (2002) with Turkish-Canadian composer Mercan Dede, and reunited with Bauhaus more than once.

"Cuts You Up"

"Cuts You Up," from the album Deep, was a surprise success. It held No. 1 on Billboard's Modern Rock Tracks chart for seven weeks and reached No. 55 on the Hot 100, and Deep reached No. 44 on the Billboard 200. Wikipedia calls it Murphy's most popular song to date. Simon Rogers said the released single "was pretty much exactly like the demo. That violin part just came out." The photo here is from 2011.

Why it matters on U-Rock®

Peter Murphy helped invent goth rock with Bauhaus. Then "Cuts You Up" spent seven weeks at No. 1 on modern rock radio.

U-Rock® play data: 1,779 plays logged across the BROADCAST and CORE histories (2026-07-02 to 2026-10-12), using the higher of the two logs.

Sources 1. Wikipedia, "Peter Murphy (musician)" — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Murphy_(musician) 2. Wikimedia Commons, "Peter-Murphy-Musician (Robman94, 2011)" — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Peter-Murphy-Musician.jpg 3. U-Rock® BROADCAST (AzuraCast) and CORE (airplay_spins) play logs