10 Best-Selling Rock Singles Of All Time

10. Awolnation, ‘Sail’ (2010)

Total weeks on the Billboard Hot 100: 79

YouTube views to date: 198 million

Awolnation's one-hit-wonder came along at the right time for both the band and music in general. An experimental track with the right blend of mainstream appeal to help it catch on, while still sitting comfortably within the "rock music" classification, 'Sail' has estimated actual sales of nine million singles globally, including the coveted RIAA Diamond certification.

Originally premiering on US rock radio in 2010, the single was a slow burner, failing to enter charts until mid-2011, where it spent 20 weeks before dropping out altogether. Had that been the end of its journey, 'Sail' may never have made it at all. However, the song found a new lease of life in 2013 and beyond thanks to a series of fortuitous events.

The track's promotional use in a variety of TV shows and adverts exposed it to a much broader audience and, following its appearance in a trailer for the hit History Channel series Vikings, weekly downloads tripled. Couple this with the overwhelming popularity of YouTuber Nanalew's fan video for the track, which racked up over 350 million views in the two years before the single had its own official music video, and Awolnation were onto a winner.

With digital sales helping it reach comparable popularity in the UK and farther afield, 'Sail' found unprecedented success, proving for one of the final times this century that some branches of rock music still have massive appeal.