The results are in, and the most watched video of 2015 goes to Uptown Funk by Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars, which has been viewed over one billion times. Obviously, garnering this amount of views is no simple feat. Ronson and Mars beat out many heavyweight artists, including but not limited to Maroon 5, Adele and Taylor Swift (yay), the latter of which had three singles in the top ten- this is truly a victory for all.
It’s not surprising that the duo managed to make this feat, since it’s 2014 release Uptown Funk has been almost inescapable. Despite it being released last year, it seems that time has not been a boundary for the track- it’s also become the number one most downloaded song on iTunes this year, as well as Michelle Obama’s pick for her favourite song of the year.
Jeff Bhasker, a songwriter who helped produce the track spoke with LA weekly about the makings of a hit, stating that “we really studied the mechanisms of what makes a hit song, and one of our mentors, Steve Lindsey, really pounded that into us. The term “hit song” implies a successful song, but you can also think about it as, like, a song that hits you. To get your point across and to get people to understand a concept clearly within a three- to four-minute time frame takes songcraft, and making it very clear and interesting to listen to, almost like you’ve heard the song already.”
It’s unclear at this point whether this track’s popularity will ever slow down, it’s already lasted a year- let’s see how it fares in 2016.