Fun fact about The Killers: England absolutely loves ’em. They’re a giant band all across the world, sure. But England fucking loves them.
Before the Las Vegas band found a way to fully crack their home market in America, the group found an audience in Britain thanks to radio DJ Zane Lowe and a little ditty called Mr. Brightside, which – after its 2003 debut – lead to a string of shows in high-profile venues in London, which in turn finally caused the US industry to sit up and take notice, allowing the band to score a major label deal that resulted in the recording and release of their debut album Hot Fuss in June, 2004; an album that was released in the UK a full week before it hit stores in America.
The more you bloody know.
Poms hold Mr. Brightside about as dear in their hearts as a pub of bawdy country blokes does Khe Sanh. It’s everywhere, and it’s everything.
The tune is so highly engrained in the ears of Brits that it just managed to pull off a remarkable feat: Mr. Brightside just clocked its 200th week as a resident of the UK singles charts.
When it was originally released some 15-odd years ago, the tune only spent a total of four weeks in the British Top 100, peaking at a respectable number 10. But, as the UK Official Charts Company reports, ever since June 2016 the song has only had a bare handful of weeks where it hasn’t featured in the Top 100.
The short answer as to what’s going on there is that streaming is helping the tune stay well ensconced in the singles charts.
The report by the chart company notes that the song has been streamed 45 million times in the 12 months to March of this year. It is, by a fair margin, the most-streamed song recorded pre-2010.
In 2018 alone the tune has registered 878,000 plays per week across the major streaming platforms (Spotify, Apple Music, and so on). In addition, the band’s first hit scores an average of 696 downloads per week so far this year.
Not a half bad effort at all, that.
