[7] Prior to the single, there had been a great deal of media speculation questioning the band's ability to emulate their successes of 2006 and their debut album.

The track has no chorus, but features an "ascending guitar duel which sounds like a cross between "Telstar", Mogwai and the Monkeys' own "When the Sun Goes Down".

So we did a brainstorm for what he was like, drew a little picture and wrote things about him," while guitarist Jamie Cook added "He was right smooth, very LA.

"[12] The music video for the song, directed by Huse Monfaradi, features the band playing in a sparse sepia set, interspersed with clips of female dancers in front of a large computerised display, stock footage from old medical educational programs and brief flashes of images of objects mentioned in the lyrics, such as "Brian", "jacuzzi" and lightning in place of "thunder".

"Brianstorm" gained notoriety in the United States after being played during a three-way brawl between talk show hosts Conan O'Brien, Stephen Colbert, and Jon Stewart on the February 4, 2008 episode of Late Night with Conan O'Brien (during the final weeks of the 2007–08 Writers Guild of America strike), as well as being featured in the rhythm video game Guitar Hero 5,[14] in which it is considered to be one of the hardest tracks on drums due to its sporadic tom-tom beats.