Apparently, Mr Brightside is celebrating its 200th week in the singles charts. Who knew? But, hey, 200 fecking weeks!! That’s some going. A lot of its success is down to downloads, loads of times. 45 million last year alone. It is the most streamed song released before 2010. It seems a certain generation partied to it endlessly from 2004 and are still partying to it today.
I bet most musicians dream of that pay-dirt song that provides an income for ever. Jona Lewie lives off a pension from Stop The Calvary because he had the foresight to mention Christmas in the lyric. Edwyn Collins must be eternally grateful to A Girl Like You constant presence on the radio. Noddy Holder and Jim Lea can securely rock on their chairs in front of a log fire, safe in the knowledge they get a nice bonus every Christmas. They can, however, be a millstone round the neck. Jona is not known for much else. Killers haven’t troubled the charts for years, despite their best efforts
However, Mr Brightside captured the imagination of a generation. How many songs have managed that?
