Twenty years after its release, The Killers' timeless hit "Mr. Brightside" has been named the UK’s official biggest single of all time yet to reach number one.
Official Charts confirms the song has officially surpassed Oasis' "Wonderwall" for the honour, spending 408 weeks and counting in the Official Singles Chart Top 100, the most weeks on chart of any song in UK Official Chart history.
Combined the song that Ed Sheeran calls "the UK's national anthem" has done sales and streams of 5.57 million (including 1.066m sales and 530,340,000 streams) in the UK. Currently it is streamed an average of 1.8 million times per week by British listeners.
In a statement, the band thanked fans for this unique award, writing, "Thank you so much to all our fans for making Mr. Brightside the third biggest song of all time in the UK, and the biggest ever not to have reached Number 1; not yet at least! This Top 10 Award means a lot to us, Mr. Brightside has been completely embraced by the British public and we can’t wait to celebrate with you all on the road. Thank you for supporting us.”
The site spoke to frontman Brandon Flowers about the honour, who spoke of how the fans have claimed the song as their own.
“It’s funny, I almost don’t feel so much of a part of it anymore," he says. "It’s just this thing that exists in the world, and it’s amazing that I had something to do with it, but I almost feel a little bit removed from it because it’s so big.”
You can watch the full interview with Flowers here.
For more insight into how this song has become one of music's most fascinating success stories, check out iHeartRadio Canada's episode of Encore, where host Myles Galloway gives you the story behind this song everybody loves.