Welcome to the second part of our countdown through the forty highest selling acts (worldwide) that have never managed a UK chart-topping single. Before cracking on with numbers 35-31, check out the first installment here, featuring some surprisingly big names and also an explanation of how the concept of ‘highest selling’ has been worked out.

All caught up? Then here’s the next five:

35. Green Day

Biggest hit: ‘The Saints Are Coming’ with U2 (#2, in 2006)

I was all ready to write about ‘American Idiot’ (#3, in 2004) as Green Day’s biggest hit… But the discographies don’t lie. Who knew, or remembered, that this duet with U2 had charted a place higher?

Recorded to raise money for those affected in New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina, and with a snatch of ‘House of the Rising Sun’ in the intro, this is a good cover of the Skids’ original. Yet it is also frustrating that this is Green Day’s biggest hit over some of their earlier pop-punk classics, or their era-defining ‘American Idiot’ hits. Though I feel some personal pride here, as Skids are from my hometown, and they always get slightly overshadowed by Big Country (the band Stuart Adamson formed post-Skids).

34. Nirvana

Biggest hit: ‘Heart-Shaped Box’ (#5, in 1993)

Two of the biggest alt-rock acts of the nineties, back to back. And again, not many people would pick ‘Heart-Shaped Box’ as Nirvana’s biggest hit, over you-know-what (it made #7). But I’m so glad it is, because it is a freakin’ tune! No band has more perfectly balanced heavy rock with pop melodies, and this is them at the peak of their powers, the lead single from third album ‘In Utero’, and probably the best song ever written about children with terminal cancer. Plus, the scene in the video with the band playing against a blood-red sky is the most gorgeous snapshot of that early-nineties, grunge aesthetic.

33. Imagine Dragons

Biggest Hit: ‘Sucker for Pain’ with Lil Wayne, Wiz Khalifa, Ty Dolla Sign & Logic (#11 in 2016)

Up next, Imagine Dragons. Or, as I like to call them, Everything That Is Wrong With Rock Music in the 21st Century. And of course they’ve sold more than Nirvana and Green Day… But like the illustrious pair that they outrank, Imagine Dragons biggest UK chart hit is not their most famous. (You know, the one that goes thump thump shout shout thump shout). In ‘Sucker for Pain’, from the ‘Suicide Squad’ soundtrack, they act as mere comperes, singing the same chorus over and over for a revolving cast of rappers, and their douchebaggery is diluted. It’s still not a very good song though.

32. Tom Petty

Biggest hit: ‘I Won’t Back Down’ with the Heartbreakers (#28, in 1989)

Like so many artists in this Top 40, Tom Petty was far more succesful in his native US (where this track made #12). And it’s kind of easy to see why, because this is proper, chugging, heartland rock that doesn’t quite translate to our green and sometimes pleasant land. But there’s a strong British influence on display here, with Jeff Lynne writing and producing (that beat has Lynne written all over it) and George Harrison on guitar. Speaking of Lynne and Harrison, the biggest UK hit that Petty featured on had come a year earlier: the Travelling Wilbury’s ‘Handle With Care’.

31. Van Halen

Biggest hit: ‘Jump’ (#7, in 1984)

Unlike every other act in this section, Van Halen’s biggest hit in the UK is the song you’d probably expect. In actual fact, ‘Jump’ was Van Halen’s first Top 40 hit in Britain. It’s interesting, American disinterest towards British glam rock in the seventies was largely replicated by the British public towards American glam metal in the eighties. And I have to admit that ‘Jump’ has always left this Brit fairly cold. It’s catchy, and the synth riff is memorable, but it pales in comparison to earlier, harder rocking Van Halen hits. It pales in comparison too to the other singles from ‘1984’, like ‘Panama’ and ‘Hot for Teacher. It was also perhaps a reason in lead singer David Lee Roth’s leaving the band the following year, as he saw it as too much of a departure from their original sound.

Before finishing this section, we should also mention three artists who would have featured here had they ever had a British hit. Luke Bryan (a 21st century C&W megastar who has had 30 Billboard country chart #1s), Johnny Hallyday (France’s biggest ever male star), and Ayumi Hamasaki (Japan’s best-selling solo star, and ‘Empress of Pop’ to much of Asia).