How The Killers' Mr Brightside got 'legendary status'
By Mark Savage and Alex Taylor
It started out with a kiss, how did it end up like this?
It’s a question that has rung out across dancefloors for more than 20 years.
The answer, for The Killers’ Mr Brightside, lies in breaking chart records… if not actually topping the charts.
The 2000s indie-rock anthem has now overtaken Oasis’ Britpop ballad Wonderwall to become the UK’s biggest-selling single never to reach number one.
According to the Official Charts Company, Mr Brightside’s 5.57 million combined sales and streams also make it the UK’s third biggest song of all time, surpassing Wham!’s festive staple Last Christmas.
This is calculated from an eye-watering 530.3 million streams (100 paid streams or 600 free streams equal one sale) and 1.1 million copies sold since it was first released in 2003.
It already holds the record for the UK’s longest-running chart hit, after spending 408 weeks – or seven whole years – in the UK top 100. Its closest competitor, Lewis Capaldi’s Someone You Loved, is far behind, with 234 weeks in the countdown at the time of writing.
