that NME single was gold just because there were so many copies of the magazine printed. In the UK to be GOLD, a single has to "sell" 400,000 copies.
weird how in the UK for an album to gold it has to sell 100 thousand copies. for a single to be gold it has to sell 400 thousand copies.
here is a link to the charts
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_recording_sales_certification