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Dutch Top 2000 facts – Top2000feitjes website

Motorcycle Emptiness

Manic Street Preachers

Motorcycle Emptiness by Manic Street Preachers (released in 1992) appeared in 12 of the 27 editions of the NPO Radio 2 Top 2000. Its highest chart entry was position 586 in 2017. The song first appeared on the list in 2014 and is still on it in 2025.

12editions on the list
586highest position
2017in edition
2014first edition

Chart history

17001400199920042009201420192025

All positions by edition

EditionPosition
20251339
20241291
20231238
20221081
20211010
2020976
2019881
2018843
2017586
2016641
2015725
2014821

More by Manic Street Preachers

How the song fared

On average, Motorcycle Emptiness was at position 952.7 in the 12 editions in which it was on the list. Its lowest chart entry was position 1339 in 2025. It reached the top 10 0 times and the top 100 0 times. The longest consecutive run was 12 editions (up to and including 2025). The biggest rise came in 2015: from position 821 to position 725 (+96). The biggest fall came in 2018: from position 586 to position 843 (-257). In 2025, the song was at position 1339 (in 2024: position 1291).

Compared with all songs

In total, 4,925 different songs have appeared in the Top 2000. With 12 editions, this song shares that score with 162 other songs, and 1,792 songs were on the list in more editions. There are 1,587 songs that have ever ranked higher than position 586.

Also released in 1992

57 other songs from 1992 are in the Top 2000. The highest chart entries:

Neighbours in the 2025 list

In 2025, this song was at position 1339. Het Laatste Rondje (André Hazes) was at position 1338, one place higher; Nergens Goed Voor (De Dijk) was at position 1340, one place lower.

Frequently asked questions

How often was Motorcycle Emptiness by Manic Street Preachers in the Top 2000?

Motorcycle Emptiness was on the list in 12 of the 27 editions (1999 to 2025), first in 2014 and most recently in 2025.

What is the highest position of Motorcycle Emptiness in the Top 2000?

The highest chart entry was position 586 in 2017.

How high was Motorcycle Emptiness in the 2025 Top 2000?

At position 1339.

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The Top 2000

The Top 2000 is an annual listener chart from NPO Radio 2: the 2000 favourite songs of the listeners, broadcast between Christmas and New Year, from number 2000 to number 1. In 2026 it is the 28th edition.

How is the list put together?

Listeners vote in advance for their favourite songs. NPO Radio 2 counts the votes and turns them into the list. In 1999 you still voted with a coupon from the free newspaper Spits; now you do it via the NPO Radio 2 website.

How did it start?

Radio 2 came up with the list around the turn of the millennium and originally meant it as a one-off. It became so popular that it returned in 2000, and every year after that. More about this on the History page.

The broadcast

Since 2010 the broadcast has come from the Top 2000 Café at the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision (Beeld en Geluid) in Hilversum. In 2025 the broadcast lasted 168 hours, with number 1 just before midnight on 31 December. Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen was number 1 in 22 editions.

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A personal project by Pim Uijttewaal: all Top 2000 lists since 1999 in one database, with facts, records and statistics. It is an extension of Alweer dat nummer? (opens in a new tab), my radio statistics for Dutch radio stations.

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You can also listen live to NPO Radio 2 here, and the music keeps playing while you navigate the site. For the song that is playing now you can see straight away whether and where it appeared in the Top 2000, with a link through to the artist and the song, plus the NPO Radio 2 programme and the presenter.

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Under the Top 2000 results is the Basement League: artists and songs that never made the Top 2000, labelled Never charted. An artist from it has their own card with all songs by year of release. If an artist is also in the Top 2000, you see the Basement League songs under their regular card. If you only want the Top 2000, untick Also Basement League above the results.

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What have I done?

  • All editions from 1999 to 2025 combined: 27 lists of 2000 positions each.
  • The top 100 of every edition compared position by position with other sources. No real discrepancies were found, only spelling variants of titles.
  • Facts and records calculated from that data, and news facts looked up, always with a source.

Where does the data come from?

  • The lists themselves come from the Excel database by Erwin Groenhof (top2000database.wordpress.com). The original source is NPO Radio 2.
  • Checked against: top2000nl.com, Wikipedia, Ziggo and news reports.
  • Photos only come from Wikimedia Commons, with the creator's name and licence included.
  • The Basement League (artists and songs that never made the Top 2000) comes from MusicBrainz and Wikidata (both free to use) and Wikipedia. That data is maintained by volunteers and may be incomplete or inaccurate.

A look behind the technology

The lists are stored in a SQLite database; the pages themselves are generated statically with Jekyll. For the near-live section, my own collector checks what NPO Radio 2 is playing every 30 seconds and matches it to the position in the list. It is the same technique as on the radio page.

What has changed? An overview of the biggest changes to the site, with dates.

Want something like this made?

This site is an example of what I build. More in the explanation of the database, or get in touch via The Jumping Fox.

Logo and rights

The Top 2000 logo belongs to NPO Radio 2. This site is not run by or on behalf of NPO.

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Top2000feitjes.nl

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Why here?

The entire Top 2000 since 1999 fits in a file of about 5 megabytes: 27 editions of 2000 songs each, making 54,000 chart entries for almost 5,000 different songs. A few queries to that database bring out the records and facts on this site, such as the highest new entries, the heavy hitters and the one-hit entries. The results are baked into static pages in advance, so visitors never notice the database and the site stays fast.

A well-known technique

SQLite is free software (public domain) and one of the most widely used databases in the world. Your phone, your browser and many apps quietly use it for their own data. I use the same approach for the radio statistics, and for the Basement League: a SQLite file of about 460 megabytes with over 4 million songs, in which search takes a fraction of a second.

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