Mr Brightside is the UK’s most streamed song in Spotify history
The Killers have just made history, with ‘Mr Brightside’ becoming the UK’s most streamed song of all time on Spotify.
It even beat the likes of Ed Sheeran and Taylor Swift.
Music Week reported that Spotify has listed the biggest tracks since its launch in October 2008.
According to the outlet, the song, released two decades ago, has over 1.8 billion streams globally as of October 9, 2023.
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While it didn't release the official figure, it also confirmed that 'Mr Brightside' was the most streamed song in the UK for the past 15 years.
At the time of its release, the song debuted at number ten; however, in the top 100 for 382 weeks.
Ultimately, Mr Brightside garnered chart sales of 5,146,333, including 4,083,702 from sales-equivalent streams, 1,040,115 downloads and 22,516 physical copies.
In 2018, the rock band sat down with Rolling Stone and recalled how they wrote the smash hit inspired by a real-life breakup.
The band's frontman, Brandon Flowers, told the outlet he wrote the lyrics after his very first split when he was 19 or 20.
At the time, he was living in a room rented by his sister for $200.
“I actually would have written it out on notebook paper with a pen,” he said.
“I wasn’t writing on a cell phone yet. You don’t write with pen and paper anymore."
He noted how he initially took inspiration from David Bowie's 'Hey B**ch', as Flowers said there's a sense of 'urgency' he wanted to replicate.
As he was writing the song, he met guitarist Dave Keuning before he began recruiting other musicians to join their band.
“[Matt Stoermer] had the drums set up in his living room, and we still didn’t have a bass player yet, so I would just hold down the bass, and I remember we just crashed through it,” Flowers said.
“It was amazing. It was a cathartic song. I didn’t know if that’s what everybody felt who was in a band.”
Ultimately, the group went on to record their first album, Hot Fuss, with 'Mr Brightside' being an instant success.
However, Flowers knew the song became a cultural anthem when they appeared at England’s Glastonbury festival in 2004.
He said when they were playing at the festival's John Peel tent, 'it went off'.
“It looked like footage of the Sex Pistols,” he recalled.
Charisa Bossinakis