As we celebrate the 30th anniversary of Billboard's Alternative Songs chart, we're looking back at the top-performing women in the chart's archives, dating to its Sept. 10, 1988 inception.
Although the Alternative Songs chart tends to be heavily male-dominated (Alice Merton became just the ninth lead solo woman to hit No. 1 in February), women and female-fronted acts have a storied history on the ranking.
Thanks to her eight entries on the chart, including a pair of No. 1s as the frontwoman for The Cranberries, the late Dolores O'Riordan rules as the chart's all-time top female artist (encompassing soloists, group frontwomen and women in duos). The band also lands both of its No. 1s on the weekly survey on the all-time top 300 Alternative Songs recap: "Zombie," at No. 39, thanks to its six-week run at No. 1 in 1994, and "Salvation," at No. 280, after ruling the chart for four weeks in 1996. O'Riordan died unexpectedly in January at age 46.