107 Best Songs of 2015
The Fader – The year’s top tracks and why we love them. Because 100 just wasn’t enough.
14. OMI, “Cheerleader (Felix Jaehan Remix)”
A 2012 reggae track rescued from obscurity in 2014 by German house producer Felix Jaehn, OMI’s “Cheerleader” and its unlikely, boomeranging trajectory to the top could only have been possible in a year like 2015, when tropical house DJs headlined festivals and Top 40 radio placed much of its money on unobjectionable chill. The relentlessly optimistic “Cheerleader” announces itself with a sunny trumpet and a cruise-ship beat; it feels like a lullaby remixed to make an enormous crowd bop, possibly for the filming of a soda commercial. There were other songs in its heavily-streamed class, but “Cheerleader” was the best—as pretty and vacant and consoling as the summer it dominated. —Jia Tolentino
