10 Best-Selling Rock Singles Of All Time
2. Bryan Adams, ‘(Everything I Do) I Do It For You’ (1991)
Total weeks on the UK Singles Chart: 25
YouTube views to date: 301 million
With estimated sales of 15 million single worldwide, seven weeks spent at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and 16 consecutive weeks in pole position on the UK Singles Chart (the longest unbroken run of any single in our chart's history), '(Everything I Do) I Do It For You' is one of the most popular rock songs ever to have been produced, and is Bryan Adams' most commercially popular song by a country mile.
Written for the 1991 Kevin Costner feature Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves, Adams teamed with Mutt Lange and the pair based the song around Michael Kamen's film score – a man famous outside the classical sphere for his work on Metallica's S&M (their concert with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra).
While far from Adams' best work, 'Everything I Do' makes the most of his gravelly voice and breaks down the boundaries between rock and the mainstream love song, executing a big, soppy, romantic power ballad that turned the heads and broke the hearts of millions. Other feathers in its cap include the Grammy for Best Song Written for Visual Media, and achieving chart number ones in over 19 countries.