2015 is one of the most important years of my life. It was also one of the worst years of my life. I was a hormonal teenager going through their first heartbreak and I did not handle it well. Of course I didn’t, I was a teenager. But it was also prime territory for something like music to suddenly dominate my life. I went from casually listening to pop radio in my mom’s car to actively seeking out music on YouTube and this cool new app I was told about called Spotify. I even started listening to entire albums! I became invested in music in a way I hadn’t been before, where my obsessive nerd energy was channelled into video games and movies. I found a community on Twitter that seemed to revolve around pop music and the goings on of the Billboard Hot 100. I watched enough music critics on Youtube that eventually I wanted to write music reviews of my own. And in September of that year, I did! 

That means that when this Sunday, November 30th, rolls around, I will have been writing about music for ten whole years. I took some breaks in between, but I always came back to it. Expressing what music has meant to me and why it connected with me so much has been my outlet for the past ten years. It all started with the music of 2015. 

I’m going to be paying tribute to songs that turn ten years old this year that, in some ways, played a major role in my life. Three songs for the next five days, leading up to the final part on November 30th, the anniversary of my first serious music essay. These aren’t necessarily my favorite songs of 2015, that list would genuinely be impossible for me to make. But all of these are songs that hold a special place in my heart. 

Mark Ronson ft. Bruno Mars - “Uptown Funk”

When I was younger and my main exposure to pop music was the radio, one of my favorite artists to pop up consistently was Bruno Mars. In 2013 I became utterly obsessed with “Treasure”, the third single off of Unorthodox Jukebox with a tight groove and the best showcase of Bruno the Vegas showman up to that point. It ticked so many of the boxes that I’ve grown to love within pop music (infectious grooves, catchy hooks, clean production and an enthusiastic performance). One night before swim team practice, I was listening to Apple Radio (before Apple Music was a thing) when an intriguing new song came up- It was by a guy named Mark Ronson (I hadn’t heard of him before), but also featured Bruno Mars! It started with this admittedly goofy melody sung by several deep, doo-wop voices set to some crisp handclaps. Then the retro guitar came in and the song started building into a cathartic yell into the first verse. Bruno and his posse start speak-singing in a sort of gang vocal cadence, oozing with playboy charisma as they brag about the jewelry and pretty girls they’re pulling. The bass groove kicks in, Bruno Mars declares himself as too hot (hot damn!) and 15-year old me realizes that I’m listening to the greatest song ever made.

I grew up on a lot of music that my parents did. The day Michael Jackson died, my parents bought a greatest hits CD and exposed me to some incredible music that got me dancing and singing along in the car. From there I was taught a lot about other artists from my parents' time like Prince and Peter Gabriel. My dad was a big pop music buff at the time, and growing up in the 80s, that kind of flashy showmanship was pop culture. So it was incredibly easy to hear this Motown throwback with Mark Ronson’s pristine composition and immediately get hooked (unsurprisingly, my dad also instantly adored this song). The blast of the horns alongside that dorky vocal melody on the hook after a rush of excitement in the pre-chorus, where you can tell Bruno is living through this song, is to this day some of the happiest and most elated emotions I’ve ever felt with a piece of art. It became all the more exciting when the song started gradually climbing the charts and eventually became one of the biggest hits of the decade. How could it not be? It’s so ridiculously catchy and fun! The kind of song that sounds world dominating. I think it’s probably the song I’ve listened to the most in my lifetime. On my own, at parties, at proms, it was the pop song of my teenage years.

I’ve exhausted a lot of my passion and love for this song over the past ten years. I don’t listen to it quite as much anymore, and when I do, I can’t get back the same delirium that I felt at the time. Plus, as I’ve become more knowledgeable in pop music then and now, part of me was a little afraid to admit it was one of my all-time favorite songs. Because it felt a little predictable and basic. Words that mean nothing to me now in the context of my own taste, but at the time it did feel like I was still missing a world of music that led up to “Uptown Funk”, and also how even it can eventually be surpassed. Hell, Bruno Mars himself might’ve surpassed it with Anderson .Paak and their duo Silk Sonic. “After Last Night” ended up recapturing that magic I felt that first time listening to “Uptown Funk”. The fact that the magic can always come back, whether it’s a new song or an old one waiting to be discovered, is what’s kept me so invested in music the past ten years.

Lunchmoney Lewis - “Bills”

I discovered “Bills” the same way I did “Uptown Funk”- Apple Radio. I heard the song come on and was instantly confused by the sporadic, goofy piano melody that sounded like it was falling upwards. I checked my phone to see the name of the song and was amused by the artist’s name. “Lunchmoney Lewis”... what a silly name. And then the rest of the song played, and before I knew it, this song was my entire life for the remainder of the year. When I tell you I was obsessed with “Bills” by Lunchmoney Lewis, this stupid fucking song about a guy falling behind on bills and being a broke loser, I mean it with every being of my heart. I was so enamored with it. I listened to it just as often as I did “Uptown Funk”. 

I can trace exactly why this song struck such a chord with me too. One of the artists I grew up with and loved my whole life was Weird Al Yankovich. I’ve seen him live several times! I’ve met the man! No, my chosen name is not because of him, but we did have a laugh about it when we met! Either way my love of Weird Al, as well as those YouTube parodies of pop songs that were really big in the early 2010s, meant that I was predisposed to liking a lot of comedy-centric pop music. Lunchmoney Lewis’ sense of humor on “Bills” is great. It’s not the same as Macklemore bragging about buying cheap clothes because they’re better. It’s more in line with a comedy of errors where this guy legitimately cannot catch a break and all the silly ways that manifests. The incredible instrumental behind him, courtesy of Ricky Reed (who will appear again), plays up that clown-esque shitshow through the aforementioned piano line, a squeaky trumpet and a lower piano melody acting as the base of the song combined with the handclaps and Lunchmoney Lewis hamming it up. The way he goes, “God damn, God damn, God damn, God damn” played in my mind so much ten years ago. Not to mention other quotable moments like “It’s too damn hot, but I still gotta walk!” and “My shoes… they got no sole!”. Making intentionally funny music is a lot harder than it seems (most of those YouTube parodies I mentioned haven’t aged very well), so for Lewis to do it so effortlessly on this song through his doe-eyed charm without outright being a comedian is ridiculously impressive.

Lunchmoney Lewis never got a bigger hit of his own after this song, mostly because he was signed to Kemosabe where careers go to die. Still, he’s doing really well on his own. He’s been a recurring songwriter for Nicki Minaj and was a part of her first #1 hit “Super Freaky Girl”. Most recently he wrote “All My Life” by Lil Durk and J. Cole, a song you can hear his fingerprints all over (probably did more for that song than Dr. Luke did, the scoundrel). But in terms of his own solo career, I don’t think he ever reached the magic he made on “Bills”. “Whip It!” and “Real Thing” came close, but I think “Bills” will likely remain his biggest legacy as it became one of those “songs everyone recognizes despite never really being a hit”. I’ll always cherish “Bills” though. I’ve revisited it a handful of times ever since it turned ten, and I can still feel that warm joy it brought me during a depression period all those years ago.

Jamie xx - “Gosh”

I listened to In Colour after I watched a glowing review of it from my now friend and colleague Spectrum Pulse. The description of the album’s sounds as well as its themes of melancholic loneliness had me very curious, especially as someone who was going through a very melancholic and lonely year. When you open In Colour, the first song you hear is “Gosh”, which didn’t quite work for me at first. A shuffling, repetitive drum pattern looping under the quiet thump of the bass, interspersed with a voice saying “oh my gosh!” in several different ways. It was kind of odd to me when I first listened to it. I wasn’t entirely sure what I was supposed to be getting out of it. Still, the groove was hypnotic. Incredibly tight and occasionally flourished with an extra bit of percussion or vocal sample. So I kept listening.

It was the second half of the song where I suddenly started paying attention. The voice had disappeared, the groove had continued, but the bass started humming its own melody. Gradually, you heard a higher-pitched synth sneak its way into the song, almost like a horizon emerging from the darkness. The higher-pitched synth takes over the lead melody as the bass plays its counter melody, and even when the rhythm stayed the same, the interplay between the two synth melodies made it feel as if you were ascending through space. It’s as if the song has consumed you, and all you can do is bask in its glory as it reaches its ultimate conclusion, fading out with some final thumps of the bass and a voice,

“To all the jungle massive all around the UK and beyond. In Ireland, France, Belgium, wherever you can pick this up, man. Many thanks for still keeping the vibe alive”

I was left speechless when the song was over. It felt like I went through a whole journey with “Gosh”. A beat that built up to something truly incredible, an unforgettable experience that convinced me that I needed to hear more of what Jamie xx had to offer. From there I listened to what is now very firmly and immovably my favorite album of all time. For most artists, “Gosh” would be their masterpiece. But there are so many songs on In Colour that gave me that same breathtaking experience, and they’re equally as special to me. “The Rest Is Noise”, “Loud Places”, “Hold Tight”, “SeeSaw”, even songs that took their time to grow on me like “I Know There’s Gonna Be (Good Times)” and “Girl”, I listened to this album so many more times throughout the years and it became a major comfort for me. “Gosh” is the song that started it all.

Tomorrow: The Weeknd- “The Hills”, Thomas Rhett “Crash and Burn”, and Ed Sheeran - “Photograph”