What does a year sound like?
What were the sounds of 2025?
Well, it wasn't any single hit song, but a collection of sounds that moved from the background to the center of youth culture.
Today, we'll trace the soundtrack of a year.
From the adrenaline of blockbuster scores to the quirky loops of unboxing videos and the hyper catchy jingles from the streets.
These sounds created a shared rhythm of hype, comfort and memory.
So how did they become the unofficial anthems for this year's generation?
We're live from our studios in beijing.
This is roundtable.
I'm steve.
Thank you so much for sharing your time with us today and for the show i'm with nyohong lin and yushan first up.
Every year, of course, has its own soundtrack, and 2025 is no exception.
Today, we'll piece together a sonic map of Chinese youth culture through the background music of the year.
Some even escaped their original settings and became collective earworms, from the cinematic roar of the Nezha 2 soundtrack to the oddly addictive beats looping behind Labubu unboxings from PopMart. and the hyper-efficient brain-hijacking jingle of a major tea brand.
Those BGMs were played in cinemas, on short video platforms, in shopping malls and on the streets, quietly stitching themselves into our daily lives.
Put together, They form a timeline of moods, hype, comfort, and collective memory.
Each year is always defined by what we do and what we say and what we listen to.
Yesterday on the show, we covered some of the trending words of the year.
And today, Nyo Honglin and Yushan will find out what we were listening to.
Good afternoon to you both.
It's always fun to catch up on the year gone by, musically speaking.
And everyone has a different one.
But there are some music tracks that are on almost everybody's playlist.
And it's not.
It's because I think here in China, as well as around the world, when you have a playlist, some of the playlists are the songs that you selected and you put them up there.
But some are just your favorite music, according to the player, because you've Listen to them so many times around the year, and they'll give you even a year-round review of your music taste.
And sometimes it's songs that you don't even like.
It's just they're so catchy that you can't get rid of them in your brain.
So Yushan, where do we start today?
We've got a fun little list to share with our listeners.
Or rather a map to be more specific.
And at the beginning point of that map we kind of need to trace all the way back to the beginning of this year, which is when the animated film that you just mentioned, Nejia 2, hit the cinemas and instantly shocked both the Chinese box office and the global charts.
So since Nojatu's domestic debut on January the 29th, which is the first day of the 2025 Spring Festival, it quickly shattered box office records.
And by mid-March, Nojatu soared past Disney's Star Wars The Force Awakens.
That was the moment where I realized, like, oh.
How big of an impact, right?
Big deal.
Because the Star Wars franchise is.
Such a great series, as far as I've known, in the North American market.
But here we have Noja, too, claiming the fifth spot on the all-time global box office charts.
And it's also the world's first non-Hollywood movie to gross over 1 billion and amassing about 22 billion.
Unbelievable how well I mean around the world.
I think it was cool for various reasons, because
It was another piece of art that put China on the map, artistically speaking.
Definitely.
I mean, and I still think, even though it was successful, I think it was still shocking for the world how successful it was.
Would you say it was it was.
It was shocking here in China to how successful globally that that that movie was.
Kind of because when it comes to movies, you think about real people, actors really good ones and directors.
And you feel like if a director is able to direct a human, a person, actor or actress and make them perform really good, that's cool.
But directing an animation, what does that mean?
How delicate and nuanced can the performance of animation actors can be?
And Noja too answers those questions.
As long as it's a good story and it's carefully designed and directed, it can be as moving and even more moving.
And indeed it was.
Yeah.
And the soundtrack, too, was a fun little mix that was really popular.
Yeah.
By soundtrack, we mean the of the movie, not really yet the song.
The whole soundtrack album of the movie already is a mixed mix of grand beats and traditional Chinese style music and vocals.
And it soon went viral online after the movie went popular here too.
And for the song that we kind of want to zoom in a little bit on now, called 就是哪吒 this is 哪吒.
It's played at the end of the film and it was soon familiarized by all who's watched the movie and who's listened to the song afterwards.
It's it's got this whole heroic, emotional and instantly recognizable melody that you will immediately align it with noja, because of um, not only the the style of the music, but also the lyrics, like how it's about bringing you as the rebellious fire that breaks free from traditional norm and strike out a path of hope for yourself, which just perfectly matched so well with the Noja movie and the Noja figure as well.
In the first three weeks or maybe not the first three weeks, but in three weeks total the song amassed 3 million views on Bilibili.
That's a video sharing platform here in China.
It also got more than 50,000 comments on QQ Music.
There's a streaming service here.
What were some of the comments?
What were people saying?
Some are just commenting with the very lines used in the movie.
For example, if there's no path ahead, I will carve out one myself.
If the heavens won't accept me, I will turn this world around.
This is something that's used to mark this movie and also kind of fade into the song as a vibe.
And then there are some others just merely commenting on the music, how great it is.
For example, this one is a little bit long, i'll try to read it fast.
That is, tang han xiao, which is the composer, breaks through the dimensional wall with a fresh wave of chinese pop, blending electronic pipa with cyberpunk aesthetics.
When Gen Z's rebellious spirit collides with the metaverse's cyber Chinese style, this electrifying anthem taps into the collective I-master-my-own-fate DNA of today's youth.
So Tang's dynamic voice shifts from the intensity of a fire wheel to ethereal lotus-like serenity, while Zhu Jingxi's lyrics transform ancient myth into a modern manifesto.
I guess there was no character limit in that comment section.
No, it didn't.
I mean, I specifically chose this one because it's so well-worded.
That's precisely how I feel about this song, too.
Well, let's not go any further without hearing a bit of the song.
It's called It's Nja from the film Nja 2.
The demon child churns the sea.
That was a bit of it's nuja from the film nuja too.
What's that instrument i was hearing there?
The song itself is kind of sound.
Kind of sounds like a blend of the old with the new, kind of dancey.
But what was that interest instrument i was hearing?
Yeah, the leading melody that we just heard is actually a traditional chinese instrument called the suona.
It's an instrument known for its Stirring and powerful sound.
So here's the trick.
Here's why I think it matches so well with Nezha the theme, because Suona on its own, when it's blown to the kind of sound that we just hear, it almost sounds disturbing.
It's not really a very friendly melody to your ear.
And that's also Nezha.
He's sort of like a very troublesome kid on his own.
But when he's placed into that context of the movie, he just coexists so well and he takes the lead.
That's what's the...
You know, the suona kind of represents Nezha's bold and rebellious nature and it all matches so well.
The song fits perfectly with the character, doesn't it?
The composer of that song is a pretty young person, in mid-30s, I think.
Yes, 36 years old, and he began his music career about two decades ago.
And for him it's also quite the journey, because when he was trying to compose the music, He was given only the plot and allowed to watch the last two minutes of the film.
Oh, interesting.
Only the last two minutes.
And so he felt the free-spirited hero having just emerged from a fierce battle to rescue his loved ones and defeat the villain.
And that was what he was given.
And based on that, he created this very inspiring son.
That's great. pretty good for only seeing two minutes of the movie.
Yes.
And the thing is, you know, a soundtrack of a movie or a TV series is going to be really good.
It's going to be the hit, a success.
One.
You can easily relate to the music, to the main character, to the plot, but go really beyond just the movie.
You can think about the encounters in your own life.
You can think about how it gives you the strength and the power to see the challenges and conquer the challenges.
That movie was incredible and it was all domestically made to 100% made in China.
There were over 2000 visual effects shots and there were contributions from 138 different animation studios, all here in China.
And I think that's just testament to I don't know if it's the growing strength of the industry here in the country, but at least testament to how talented the industry is and the people working in the industries are.
And you see that after that, the year 2005, have seen a lot of good blockbusters here in China as well as around the world.
And I think we've talked about many of these movies.
We've talked about the...
The Lychee Road is quite a good one.
And when it comes to animation, there's nobody.
I think Yu Shang really enjoyed nobody.
Yeah, cried so hard at the end.
Why?
Because of the plot.
And in case you haven't watched it, I'm not going to give spoilers.
Okay.
But yeah, it's a good movie.
It's a 2D animated film about four lowly monsters that's constantly impersonating the legendary heroes.
From Journey to the West.
Yes, Journey to the West.
I guess we talked about this on Roundtable, because I remember watching the trailer for that and having a chat with somebody in the office about this story, this classic tale Journey to the West.
It just kind of... from time to time reappears in China's pop culture.
And from different perspectives, having different ways to interpret.
And that is why, with all this good work, we see that, as of December 19 2025, the country's total box office revenue for the year has surpassed 505 billion yuan.
That is around 72 billion US dollars, with 80 of that total box office contributed by domestic fields.
But that's not saying we do not like overseas import films.
Because, of course, Zootopia 2 is also in this year.
And, well, to be honest, I haven't really watched Zootopia 2 yet.
But with a good reason.
Because I'm waiting for my boyfriend to arrive in China so that we can watch together.
But...
Zootopia 2.
It does create such an impact here in China because its box office here in Chinese mainland accounted for nearly half of its global total.
Meanwhile Avatar, Fire and Ash also broke with tradition by launching simultaneously in China and in the United States.
Me, myself, I've been to watch Avatar, let's just call it Avatar 3, and I watched it twice.
Oh, you watched it twice?
Yeah, the first time was just a normal 3D screen, while the second time I specifically went to watch the CineT LED screen, which is on.
The price level is a bit higher, but that CineT LED technology is the state-owned high-tech cinema format introduced by China Film Group back in 2023.
So that one is bringing the whole narrative of the story of the movie to a whole new level by elevating on the resolution.
It's got 4K resolution, 120 frames per second.
It's all going so smoothly.
It's like I know the story, but I'm watching a smoother and enhanced version of the story.
Like you're watching it for the first time.
Yeah.
Did you like it, by the way?
I do.
I love it.
I am a huge fan for Avatar, the whole franchise.
James Cameron was talking about the Chinese film market and he said that it's critical to his personal global strategy as a filmmaker to And that speaks volumes because it just says how powerful the pull of the Chinese film market is here.
When you've got top world directors like James Cameron saying it's a point to focus on the Chinese market.
That's just proof.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I remember going to the theater.
I think it was earlier this year.
The Mission Impossible film came out and the theater was packed at that time.
And I saw something.
I found it to be very touching.
Actually, at the end of the film, people clapped.
And I thought that was kind of cool.
I've never seen that in a Canadian movie theater before, people clapping for the movie.
So I just thought it was kind of nice.
And yeah, there were lots and lots and lots of successful examples of films, both domestically and internationally, here in China in 2025.
Now, Nu Jia Qiu, I guess, was the big cinematic opening of this year's soundtrack.
But the next stop takes us somewhere much smaller and much uglier, cuter but no less loud online, moving from theaters to blind boxes and short video feeds.
This is where the, the background music of the year, stopped being epic and started being playful, ironic and really, really loopable.
That was the first and maybe last time I'll ever hear that.
It's a happy, happy song.
It's really happy.
A little bit annoying if you listen to it 30,000 times.
In the beginning, I thought, oh, this is kind of annoying, but it can't possibly get more annoying.
Oh, yeah, no, it can.
It grows on you, kind of.
Well, La Boo Boo was a worldwide sensation this year.
By the way, that was put out by Silly Socks.
That was part of an album.
An album.
I don't know what other tracks are on that album.
An album that I listen to over and over again, back and forth, in order to find, you guys, my favorite piece, the most playable and fun piece.
Well, in case you don't know, if you've been living under a rock for the previous 12 months, La Boo Boo is the cute-slash-ugly snaggletoothed, Wide-eyed figuring created and sold in Pop Mart this year and then went on to be a global incredible sensation.
Yes, it was created by an artist from Hong Kong SAR.
His name is Kessing Long.
And it's just becoming such a Gen Z obsession nowadays.
There are celebrities worldwide shouting out for it.
And then the real feel came from everyday fans.
Everybody lining up for hours from Shanghai all the way to London, all chasing that tiny moment of excitement victory when they finally get one of those little dolls.
If you don't know how hot, how popular, how hard it is to get a labubu, here is a little detail.
We traveled to xizang this year and in lhasa it's like literally the top of the world.
It's really high up there and we're out of oxygen.
But we saw a pop mart franchise and we went in and we see Is there a laboo?
When they say no, we sold out.
Oh, they sold out.
They sold out.
At the top of a mountain.
Yep.
You said London.
This is from CNN from May of this year.
After chaotic scenes of queuing, I'm reading.
After chaotic scenes of queuing, crowd surges and reported fights, distributor Popmart has suspended all in-store sales of the collectible across the UK.
Here's a quote.
Due to the increasing demand for our beloved Labubus, we've seen a significant rise in customer turnout on restock days, with long queues forming outside our stores today.
And RoboShops, those are the self-service stores.
To ensure the safety and comfort of everyone, we will temporarily pause all in-store and RoboShop sales of the Little Monster plush toys until further notice.
People were fighting over these things.
Well, and this is from Beijing that...
We see that June this year, a mint green Labubu doll sold for over 1 million yuan.
Unbelievable.
Yeah, and that's how popular.
It's an auction in Beijing, but still it really shows how popular and how lovable it is seen by people.
Because Labubu is now seen as an icon in what we call the IP economy, right?
The intellectual economy. property economy that's really popular here in China nowadays.
So since this summer, Labubu is kind of taking the lead, but people are actively paying for a lot of other IPs too.
There are well, since recent years, cultural related sectors.
It has already emerged as a robust catalyst for China's economic growth.
So this is, according to National Bureau of Statistics that the country's per capita expenditure on education, culture and entertainment reached over 3000 yuan in 2024, and that marks a 98 year-on-year increase and accounting for 113 of total per capita consumption spending, which means that, among young people especially, each of us, if not 9 out of 10 of us, are more or less participating in this IP economy and gaining that little bit of la boo boo, or whatever what you may call, to just satisfy our own emotional value and feel happy for the dolls that we have by spending a bit money on it.
Everybody wanted one.
Did you hear about the movie?
Potential movie, by the way.
Not just yet, but yes, there is a potential movie.
This was from The Hollywood Reporter.
Sony Pictures picked up the screen rights to La Boo Boo with the aim of making a film and, in success, launching a franchise.
Now from the time of the article.
This was in November of this year.
No producer or filmmaker at that stage has been attached to the film.
The deal was very early.
The signing was very early at that point in time, so it was too early to tell whether the potential movie would be live action or animated.
But anyway, the rights have been purchased.
To be honest, Labubu confuses me a little bit, because how expensive they are and how popular they are.
But after digging into the story of the creation and everything, you realize that PopMart, as well as other franchise, toy franchise, have created different lines of product for a really long time.
And it's partly because of their effort, partly because that the aesthetics, the kind of understanding about how cute and how lovable something can be, and also the trends of emotional consumption, like Yushan has mentioned, has been on for this long and that leads to global, global people or global consumers having a love for labubu as well as other chinese ip.
I'm talking about black myth.
Yay, i love that game as well and that is also quite a hit And, to be honest, in that one there is also a soundtrack.
I think it's the Qin Xiang one that I particularly enjoyed and as well as many gamers out there.
And that one also features Suona.
Oh, yeah.
The thing is, I've seen a player who is Definitely not from China singing that song in a short video.
That's how trendy and how brainwashing in a positive way it can be.
Well, from designer toys and ironic cuteness, the soundtrack of 2025 now takes a sharp turn towards something far more instinctive.
Hope.
Momentum and a craving for good vibes.
As La Boo Boo's playful loops faded from feeds, another song started cutting through with a totally, totally different energy.
A little louder, a little brasher, but yet still impossible to ignore.
I'm not a music critic, but I did enjoy that more than the Lu Bu Bu.
Oh, really?
Just a touch, just a touch.
Yeah, that's the Ba Feng Lai Cai, a track by Chinese singer Chen Xu Kai, who's better known as Lan Lao, right by both his fans in China and outside.
So it didn't really came wrapped in any sort of cinematic spectacle or collectibles, but it's spread as just as fast as the previous music we've listened to.
It's echoing through shops, especially on short video platforms, where people are dancing to this piece.
You're right, Steve.
People from in and outside of China, they just love this.
Sometimes people don't even understand what's being said.
I think it's more about the message in the song or the message of the title.
And that's why it became such a huge hit this year.
I cannot recall hearing so many nice and blessing words in just one song.
So many different ways of saying getting good luck and good fortune in different scenarios.
So Bafang correct me if I'm wrong it refers to the eight directions east southwest north, plus the four diagonals.
Right.
Northeast southwest, those ones and then light side means wealth coming into your wallet from all directions.
So yeah, so basically that's the message money coming to you from every single possible direction.
And that is part of the reason that it's a little controversial, in a way, because people believe it can be a bit too tacky.
Yeah, it's too much related to wealth and fortune, but that does not stop the music from going viral.
Well, and then this is what happens with pop songs, right?
It happens in the West too.
You'll get a popular pop song and then people will take a portion of that song and they'll start putting that little tiny bit, that loopable bit, on their social media posts.
And that's exactly what happened here in China too.
Yeah, and with just not really too long after the song went viral, as well as many other songs from Lan Lau, this singer, Len Lau.
He took over J Cho, who is the king of C-pop, the king of Chinese pop music, to top Spotify's overseas Chinese language artist chart with over 3 million monthly listeners.
And by this August, that number surpassed 5 million, setting up a new record.
So this whole music style, as we've already listened to, is kind of like a very rap style, but it actually features this authentic Memphis rap flavor, also known as Memphis hip hop or Memphis horrorcore.
Yeah, yeah.
It's a regional subgenre of hip hop music in the United States.
It comes from Memphis.
Memphis means Memphis, Tennessee, the state of Tennessee.
Right.
Or maybe back as far as the 1980s.
Anyway, it had a pretty significant influence on Southern rap in general.
But what I didn't know is that it had an influence on Chinese rap.
So that was kind of cool to hear the combination there.
And for those of you who are familiar with music or music critics, you can hear the guofeng, or traditional Chinese style musical instruments in it.
And that is paired with the local Canton dialect.
And with the lyrics we mentioned, there are a lot of different expressions about how money can come in different scenarios.
And we've talked about this.
I think in the past, some people would deem that ooh.
Is it because the Chinese society has no problem with materialism and we're talking about money all the time, and in New Year occasions we would even wish each other being wealthier?
But I don't think it's about that.
It's more of nice words and happy wishes that you can wish everybody, regardless of their gender, of their age, of their profession.
Yeah, it's just a kind of a positive wishing manifestation style of way of looking at the world in a light, in the light tone slight slash like greetings.
Slash new year's hope, like have a great new year, hope you get everything you want, like that type of that type of thing.
Yes, this was popular overseas.
This was in the global top 50 on spotify and it ranked highly in a bunch of different countries uk germany india turkey egypt, um and then, of course, that spilled on to tiktok without any needed explanation there.
My favorite comment though, was from an overseas listener who said understanding zero percent, vibing 100.
Yay, that's the whole point of this song going viral nowadays.
There's something powerful in how the traditional chinese musical touch is binded with Canton dialect way of just speaking, like speaking, speaking non-stop.
We've got that vibe that chills you while giving you good luck like good wishes.
I think these types of things like this major hip-hop hit in like the examples we talked about already really helped the country in terms of tourism, because when people hear these and see these movies and play these games, that makes them curious about Chinese culture, Chinese pop culture, and it makes them want to come and visit.
Definitely.
And we see that the visa-free entries constitute over 7 million, or 722, of all foreign arrivals in the third quarter, making nearly half of the annual increase.
And we can see that, as cultural experience tours gain popularity, we see more and more foreign tourists when they come to China, when they can actually be immersed in the environment.
When they can hear these kind of songs on the streets instead of just from their YouTube channel or from their TikTok, the feeling's different.
It's really fun and cool to know that that's a reality.
Well, just as Bafang Lai Cai turned rhythm into a shared wish, the next example on our musical map of 2025 takes us in another direction.
Takes us in a northeastern direction, as a matter of fact.
This takes us towards a place, an identity, and some regional vibes.
And it leaves behind the abstract flow of the different types of music that we've heard so far.
And it zooms in on something very deeply specific and very specifically local, too.
Yeah.
That was a bit of the Grand Northeast, My Hometown by Yuan Yao Wei.
So tell us about this one and why it was such a big hit.
The funniest part is that what we just heard isn't really the original song.
It's the most popular version circulating online right now.
So here's the fun anecdote that kind of pushed the creation of what we're hearing right now.
Who would have thought that one of the AI-covered versions of this song pushed the wave of popularity even further?
So the reason this piece went viral was kind of surprising, because at first this whole It's on the Grand Northeast, my hometown.
It was kind of adapted into all kinds of versions, the male's voice version, the female's version.
Like remixed a bunch of times.
Yeah, that's okay.
But what's with the Cantonese version and Sichuan dialect version?
I mean, why not?
Yeah, because those places are down south.
And the song is about a northeastern hometown.
Hometown being the key word.
But here's the twist.
When there's an AI Yuan Yawei version came out.
Yuan Yawei is a very popular female singer here in China.
And the AI Yuan Yawei kind of sang the song.
And then everybody was unsatisfied about it.
They were calling for Yuan Yawei to just come out.
Show us what's the true power of divas.
So that becomes what we just heard, the jazz version of the diva herself presenting the music.
And I think I've heard the AI version too.
And I think the real human version is so much more powerful than the AI version can achieve.
But you cannot get the melody out of your head.
That's true.
This is the first time I'm listening to this, but it's looping in my head.
And I kind of get it, because when it comes to that part of China, when it comes to the Northeast, people would think people there, local people there, are passionate, they're welcoming.
And when you visit their hometown, they would...
They would welcome you with the best food they have, with the most possible warm-hearted kind of service you can get.
And right in the beginning of this year, I visited Harbin.
And when I was there, I can already see people adapting their traditions because of the travelers around, because they believe the travelers are not accustomed to that tradition.
Low temperature.
They might not be accustomed to the kind of raw, traditional food and snacks that they've been enjoying for so many years.
So they would adapt them into a more modern version.
And that trend is gaining popularity and also up leveling even this year, because we're in the wintertime and we see more travelers going to that part of the country and enjoying the winter days, enjoying the snow and ice.
That's what the region is famous for.
Yes, yes, definitely.
And one thing that they're doing is they are installing stoves on the streets outside so that when people feel cold, they can get close to the little stoves.
And yes, and get warmer, enjoying the winter weather. even better.
And also they are putting a lot of different sleds on the streets outside because with the snow the ground or the floor can be a little bit slippery, especially when it's outside.
They're doing everything they can to make customers, travelers feel welcome.
And I guess that is why even people from Sichuan and Guangdong are saying the Northeast, grand Northeast to my hometown.
Yeah.
And I guess people love it because even if they're not from the region, that word hometown might trigger that sense of nostalgia wherever they're from.
All right.
Choo-choo train is coming to a stop.
One more.
We're going to leave the dialect and the nostalgia. and the AI jazz battles behind now.
And we're going to go to some storefront speakers.
To a milk tea shop, enter the theme song of a popular milk tea brand with a jingle so simple, so repetitive and so unavoidable that it quietly became no, no.
It loudly became one of the most recognized sounds of the year.
I made up my own words.
Oh, milk tea shop, give me some milk tea.
Did you know that this theme song also, I think it has a, korean version oh it's got into all different languages many different 12 i think to our american listeners if you're hearing that and going wait a minute i've heard that before yes you have heard that before it's oh suzanna that's the melody yeah yeah that's from the united states and that goes back to gosh i don't even know what year uh that came out but that's They've done different versions of that and sampled it all around the world for different reasons.
And it inspired the creation of the Misha theme song.
And you know what?
After so many years, it came back to the United States.
Yeah, they opened.
They opened on December 19th, 2005.
Was it that recently?
Yes, very recent.
The Chinese beverage Cheyenne officially opened its first U.S. store in Los Angeles.
It is quite a big deal and they chose a pretty iconic spot at 6922 Hollywood Boulevard for their American debut.
Cool.
And what they're offering is $3.99 US dollars for a combo.
Within that combo, you get two bottle of milk tea and one ice cream.
That's how cheap it is.
You've done your research on this one.
And the reason they're able to do that is that They have started their coffee bean factory in Mexico one or two years ago and the global supply chain is quite complete, making sure that they can bring the price down and make sure consumers can enjoy that.
Yeah, and it's not only Mi Xue, to be honest.
Yeah, there's other examples.
There's been an increasing number of Chinese catering brands like Nice Note Nice, Xue Cha Ji, Ba Wang Cha Ji and Hey Tea Xi Cha.
And Luckin, the coffee brand, too.
They've all been kind of expanding into the U.S. market over this whole year as well.
So we see the strong momentum that Chinese brands are showing in not only...
Thriving domestically, but also sharing this sweet ice and snow sound with the U.S. lovers, too.
Oh, milk tea shop.
Give me some milk tea.
I'll give some to my friends and I'll keep some for me.
That's a good one.
See, they should be hiring me, shouldn't they?
That was a lot of fun to take a look at the year through the lens of the music that was with us, either through catchy hip-hop songs or AI jazz.
Variations of region-specific songs or brands who are going international and their catchy jingles have entered into our ears as earworms too.
That was a fun, fun way to look at the year.
