30/09/2025
Netfm.net
Classic Rock - Itโs All About the Music
This week in 2003, The Killers released the single โMr. Brightsideโ (September 29)
The song was written by frontman Brandon Flowers and lead guitarist Dave Keuning, and was one of the first songs the Killers ever wrote.
Lyrically, "Mr. Brightside" depicts a true story of Flowers' jealousy and paranoia when he walked into a bar in Las Vegas and found his girlfriend cheating on him.
โI was asleep and I knew something was wrong," he said. "I have these instincts.
I went to the Crown and Anchor, a bar in Vegas, and my girlfriend was there with another guy."
The really interesting thing about this song though, is that it only has the one verse, which is repeated once! Thatโs it!
The bandโs debut single from their debut album โHot Fussโ peaked at #5 in Canada, and #10 in both the US and the UK, #15 in New Zealand, #29 in Australia, #40 in Germany and Italy, #48 in Ireland, #61 in Austria, and #66 in the Netherlands.
But the love of this song has far outstripped these chart positions, and has lasted throughout the decadesโฆ
As of April 2021, "Mr. Brightside" has spent 260 non-consecutive weeks, or five years, on the UK Singles Chart, the most out of any song.
As of 2017, it had charted on the UK Singles Chart in 11 of the last 13 years, including a 35-week run peaking at #49 between July 2016 and March 2017.
On January 5, 2024, the song re-entered the UK Official Singles Chart Top 40 exactly ten years after its last week on this part of the chart.
According to the data from the Official Charts website, there have now been three periods when the song has been in the Top 40 chart.
It was the UK's most streamed pre-2010 song, until it was surpassed by Oasis' "Wonderwall" in late 2018
It is also one of the top fifteen most downloaded rock tracks ever in the UK. According to the Official Charts Company, the song has been streamed 281 million times in the UK.
In August 2025 "Mr. Brightside" reached 375 weeks in total on Ireland's singles charts, despite never having been in the Irish Top 40.
In May 2024, "Mr. Brightside" overtook Oasis' "Wonderwall" to become the UK's most successful song of all time that had not reached #1.
The US version film clip won an MTV Video Music Award for Best New Artist in a Video at the 2005 MTV Video Music Awards.
In October 2010, โMr Brightsideโ was voted #9 in the Greatest Guitar Riffs of the 21st Century so far by Total Guitar magazine.
Additionally, in 2010 Rolling Stone listed "Mr. Brightside" as the 48th-best song of the 21st century.
Click on the link below to watch a great live version:
https://youtu.be/bfmO9FnxALU
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