“Everybody Talks” by Neon Trees

"Everybody Talks" kicked off Neon Trees' second album, Picture Show, slipping out as a download in December 2011 and then creeping up on everybody as a sleeper hit. Tyler Glenn wrote it with Tim Pagnotta, and he has said the band had fallen for Roy Orbison and the Motown records his dad played, which explains the vintage-pop bounce under the glossy guitars. Justin Meldal-Johnsen produced it and Billy Bush mixed it into a bright, jittery rush.

The nerves have a backstory: on National Coming Out Day in 2020, Glenn revealed he wrote it while still closeted, about an ex-girlfriend who had been spreading rumors that he was gay. It became the band's first Top 10 hit and, years later, their first song to pass 1 billion streams on Spotify.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.