For a decade now, DJ Earworm has been releasing a mash-up of 25 of the year’s top Billboard songs. The annual “United State of Pop” release is a mirror on our collective musical past, a quick SparkNotes of 12 months in chart hits and radio ubiquity.
This year it’s a diverse mix, starting off with the warm chords of Sam Hunt’s country hit “Body Like a Back Road” before diving into Ed Sheeran’s blockbuster “Shape of You” marimba and Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee’s inescapable “Despacito” riff. Right off the bat, we’ve already traversed three different regional genres and musical styles. That variety is a theme throughout the mashup: somehow, Earworm charts a path between the modern funk of Bruno Mars, the emo hip-hop of Lil Uzi Vert and the EDM-lite of The Chainsmokers and Coldplay. Ed Sheeran, Imagine Dragons and Post Malone tie as the most-sampled artists, each with two songs making it into the four-minute mix.
Give it a listen at the link, and consider adding it to your New Year’s Eve party playlist. In fact, you could just play this on repeat all night and know you’d hit all the right notes for the year.
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