Jay Horrocks writes ...
There is a song from the 90s which is extremely popular. It spent 11 weeks at the top of the US Hot 100 Airplay chart, it was a number 1 hit across most of Europe, having most of its success in Scandinavia and Belgium.
In fact according to its Wikipedia entry it is the most played song in the UK from the 90s. It was the 19th most played song of the 00s, and the 40th most played song of the 2010s. It's the most played song on Australian radio since 1990 (sorry Weather With You by Crowded House), and Q Magazine in the UK even listed it as the best ever pop song in a 2013 special edition.
It's gone double platinum in the UK and is one of the top 100 best selling singles of all time (despite only making number 2 in the charts)
It's even got a pretty iconic video, and the song even went viral through an interpretive mime performance by Yohan Lipowitz (real name David Armand) in 2005 on HBO (if you haven't seen his performances of songs I highly recommend it. He even joined the singer on stage for a performance, again going viral in the process.
A final bit of trivia is that it was performed by a former Australian soap star (hence its popularity Down Under) and was her biggest selling hit.
I am of course talking about Torn, most popularly known as a Natalie Imbruglia song, but it was in fact released three times prior to her making it a global success. In fact it was written 4 years prior to her 1997 release by Danish band Ednaswap. The first 3 releases didn't fare too well, but I'm sure songwriters Scott Cutler and Anne Preven will be very happy with the success of their work, even if they weren't the face of its' success.
