Bastille’s ‘Pompeii’ Cracks Two Billion Streams On Spotify
The group’s 2013 hit was once the most-streamed song of all time in the UK.
Pompeii was destroyed by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius nearly 2,000 years ago, but “Pompeii” still stands as one of the most popular songs of the 21st century. Bastille’s 2013 hit has reached its latest statistical milestone, surpassing two billion streams on Spotify.
“Pompeii” was a worldwide smash upon release. In an era when not many rock songs were approaching the top of the pop charts, the synth-infused alt-rock track reached No. 2 in the English band’s native U.K. and No. 5 in the U.S. In Scotland and Ireland, it went all the way to No. 1.
Though “Pompeii” was a radio hit, it was also a streaming powerhouse during a time when the format was rapidly gaining a foothold around the world. It spent a then-record seven weeks atop the U.K.’s Official Streaming Chart in 2013 and was the year’s second most-streamed track in the U.K. By the summer of 2014, it had become the most-streamed song ever in the U.K. Though that mark has since been surpassed, Bastille’s breakthrough hit clearly remains a streaming powerhouse, it’s one of fewer than 300 songs all-time to reach the two billion threshold.
Click to load video
“I was reading a book that had some picture of the people who got caught up in the volcanic eruption,” Bastille’s Dan Smith told Radio X of the song’s genesis. “And it’s just such a kind of dark powerful image, and it got me thinking about how boring it must have been emotionally after the event. To be sort of stuck in that same position for hundreds and hundreds of years. So, the song is sort of an imaginary conversation between these two people who are stuck next to each other in their sort of tragic death pose.”
If that feels bleak for the lyrical content of a hit song, the music of “Pompeii” is far more enlivened and upbeat than the subject matter suggests. Pitchfork’s Amy Phillips wrote that its chorus “feels like the sun breaking through a thunderstorm.” As a debut single, it was enough to launch Bastille to a successful career. “It allowed us to tour and release music pretty much everywhere,” Smith told Songwriter Universe in 2020. “And since then, we’ve never really hit the ground.”
