10 Catchiest Indie Rock Songs

Well, well, well, if it isn’t the scrawny little brother of Mr Brightside… Anybody with a working pair of ears and a heartbeat will be able to tell you – The Killers write tunes. Since 2004, should any of Flowers & Keuning’s hits have been queued up on a jukebox, a room full of tapping toes and enthusiastically lip-synced lyrics could surely be found shortly thereafter. Then there’s the curious case of the previously mentioned Mr Brightside, a song to which Brits are born knowing all the words. A song to which 99% of the world’s population will scream along with at the top of their lungs, in the event of more than a single unit of alcohol passing their lips. A song which every wedding DJ is guaranteed to drop as soon as your ‘Fun Uncle’ gets his tie wrapped around his head like Bruce Lee’s bandana.

So frequently overshadowed by his big brother is ‘When You Were Young’. Plucked from the tracks of Sam’s Town, the plucky follow-up to 2004’s smash hit Hot Fuss, ‘When You Were Young’ is the quietly confident underdog to Mr Brightside’s loud, brash insecurity. Falling in that perfect range of tempo that can get an entire festival crowd bouncing in unison, it lends a strong, driving chord progression to Flowers’ melancholy, bitter lyrics. It’s this chord progression that allows that festival crowd to vocalise the entire intro, and with a chorus consisting of a total four words repeated twice, it takes minimal effort to picture yourself in that huge crowd.