The 2014 edition of Earworm's annual project features hits of all genres including the upbeat and poppy 'Shake It Off' and the slow-tempo 'Let Her Go' by Passenger.
- Dec 4, 2014
AceShowbiz - DJ Earworm is back. The musician, who annually releases a mash-up of the year's biggest hits, premiered the 2014 edition of "United State of Pop" called "Do What You Wanna Do" on Billboard on Wednesday, December 3.
The newest mash-up features 25 hottest songs which have been ruling the charts in the past few months, including Taylor Swift's "Shake It Off", Iggy Azalea's "Fancy", Maroon 5's "Animals", Meghan Trainor's "All About That Bass" and Ariana Grande's "Problem".
Those up-tempo poppy songs blend perfectly with hip-hop and R&B tunes like Jason Derulo's "Talk Dirty", DJ Snake & Lil Jon's "Turn Down for What" and Jeremih's "Don't Tell 'Em" as well as slow-tempo ballads like John Legend's "All of Me", Passenger's "Let Her Go", Sam Smith's "Stay With Me" and A Great Big World's "Say Something".
Earworm started the tradition of releasing mash-ups of huge hits in 2007. "The thing that has been most notable in the past two or three years is the decline of EDM," he told Billboard of his song choices for 2014. "The 'United State of Pop' became this dance track from '09 to '12, and then starting last year, there just wasn't enough in that genre to fully support it, so I went down-tempo."
"This year, 'Timber' which was popular in January, is the only popular dance track I'm dealing with. It's definitely down-tempo, so you have to decide, how is this going to go? How am I going to maintain the energy levels while being true to the sound of the year?" he added and noted that songs in 2014 were "more diverse" and "softer" than those in previous years.
"[There are] 'Say Something' and 'All of Me', and then swaggering hip-hop songs like 'Turn Down for What', 'Talk Dirty' and 'Black Widow'. Then you have totally uptempo songs like 'Happy' and 'Shake It Off' too," he explained. "I would love the whole thing to be perfectly blended each time, but it also has to be digestible. Some years, it's a pretty straightforward instrumental from one source, but this year is the most blended instrumental I've been able to achieve yet."
