10 Best-Selling Rock Singles Of All Time
7. Imagine Dragons, ‘Radioactive’ (2012)
Total weeks on the Billboard Hot 100: 87
YouTube views to date: 1.35 billion
Imagine Dragons were big news back in 2012. The release of their fifth EP Continued Silence (the final one before their debut album Night Visions) introduced the world to a polished yet strikingly experimental alternative rock sound that would propel them into stardom.
Nowhere was this more apparent than in the lead song, 'Radioactive'. Sporting a hip-hop beat, synthesiser bass, electro house effects and Mumford & Sons guitar melodies, the song made a serious dent in the global charts, and has since been certified Diamond in the US (RIAA) and 3x Platinum in the UK (BPI), with estimated actual sales of 10 million units worldwide.
Upon release, 'Radioactive' reshaped the rock mould, bringing in a new sound that would go on to influence and define a lot of chart music throughout the 2010s. Unfortunately, in capitalising on this success, the band failed to grow and develop, instead sinking into uninspired, radio- and club-friendly insta-hits for all subsequent records.
Try as they might to recapture that initial success by throwing more money at it, the ever-expanding list of writers and producers on Imagine Dragons' songs doesn't seem to be the way to achieve this.