The Song That Defined 2025 — Everyone Heard It, and No One Could Escape It

Every year, there’s one particular song that finds a way to captivate the population at large. Whether it’s really that grand of an sonic feat, or it simply mastered the scientific code for being inescapably catchy, it’s the easiest and most effective way to encapsulate a time. It’s a song that played during every award show, streaming ad, and store overhead speaker, soundtracking all of the life that was lived within the last 365 days.

While there were certainly a few contenders for the year’s most definitive track, including Alex Warren’s “Ordinary,” and 2024 hits like “Not Like Us” by Kendrick Lamar and “Beautiful Things” by Benson Boone continuing to consume airwaves in 2025, “Die With A Smile” by Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars was unequivocally the year’s biggest overall single. It earned over 1.7 billion streams on Spotify and topped the year-end Hot 100 chart, making history as the first male-female duet where both are credited as lead to do so. Also serving as Spotify’s fastest song ever to hit one billion streams before later surpassing three billion streams, this collaboration is embedded in the DNA of this year. Here’s what makes the song so special and how it went on to claim the title as the song that defined 2025.

The Story Behind “Die With A Smile”

If there’s one thing that cannot be denied, it is that Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars are two of the industry’s most important pop stars. They’ve both individually led careers that completely disrupted their respective lanes and produced massive hits, going on to headline Super Bowl halftime shows and cement everlasting legacies. But while they’ve undoubtedly always been musically compatible, it took both acts a couple decades into their careers to finally collaborate. Yet, as its success proves, the delay was most certainly with the wait.

“Die With A Smile,” while vocally exhilarating, is first and foremost a lyrical feat. The soft pop ballad tells a story of cherishing every millisecond you have with your lover, living in the bliss of fully belonging to someone. The two artists co-wrote and co-produced the track, as they’re individually well-defined by their writing capabilities just as much as their performance range. The storytelling meets tragedy with exuberance, as if suffering alongside your partner is not suffering at all.

If the world was ending, I’d wanna be next to you

If the party was over and our time on Earth was through

I’d wanna hold you just for a while and die with a smile

If the world was ending, I’d wanna be next to you

Spending 51 weeks in the Hot 100’s Top 10 and 60 total weeks on the chart, its remarkable longevity is a testament to how deeply the public resonated with its emotional intensity. From a wedding ballad to a karaoke solo, it’s a song that’s fun to sing while equally nourishing to the tender heart. It became a global phenomenon, landing at the number one slot in over 30 countries, including the US, Canada, New Zealand, and Netherlands.

Both artists hadn’t been musically active in some years, so this song served as a boost for Gaga and Mars as solo acts as well. For Mars, “Die With A Smile” lands among his most streamed, most-played and longest-running chart hits. For Gaga, her hit album Mayhem featured the song, helping the project rise to the critical acclaim that it did and cementing 2025 as one of her most lucrative career years musically.

The song’s accompanying visual was just as much of a critical point in its overall success. Set in a vintage TV-studio setting, the music video was Vevo’s most-watched video of 2025, with nearly one billion views. Both Gaga and Mars were fully immersed in the costuming of the time capsule, giving a live performance while donning matching blue tuxedos and eyes full of yearning.

Earning multiple Grammy nominations, including Song of the Year, Gaga and Mars took home the Grammy for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance, affirming the critical and commercial impact of the song. Beyond being a crowd favorite, it’s a pop feat that checks every box. From massive industry names to vocal acrobatics, to lyrical tenderness, it’s an impeccably crafted sonic feat that defined an entire year and solidified its ranking in pop music’s most fascinating collaborations.