That's my answer, and as someone who works for Jet2 I am the only one qualified to give it! :P

 

Plus, it's not just the ads, it's played when you board a Jet2 plane (as I recently found out), and of course the hold music when you're on a call.

 

I've been on two Jet2 flights where it was played on loop. :cry:

 

Drove me truly mad by the end, I used to like the song originally as well.

Ladbaby with he sausage

Rag'n'Bone Man - Human

James Bay - Hold Back The River

OneRepublic - Counting Stars

Bastille - Pompeii

Ella Henderson - Ghost

Fun. - We Are Young

Passenger - Let Her Go

Hozier - Take Me To Church

John Legend - All Of Me

Sam Smith - Stay With Me

 

I think quite a few people will know these if they heard them but probably couldn’t tell you the artist or the name of the song.

 

 

Surprised no one's said One Dance yet.

^^

To my knowledge I’ve never heard One Dance. There’s no way that translates to people over 35 or so.

I don't think there are truly very many, from the last 15 years, that we could confidently say almost everyone will have heard.

 

I think it has to be something that crosses every age boundary, so most likely something heavily played by Radio 1 and 2 as well as Heart, to fit the criteria.

 

Someone Like You or I Gotta Feeling are the closest examples I can think of but I couldn't really be sure that everyone I know has heard of these tracks.

 

I'm not sure the HUGE hits become as well known these days as they used to, because of the different media options around us now to choose our own music to listen to, we're probably not bombarded like we used to be by the likes of Spice Girls, Take That, Oasis and all the 80s classics etc.

 

One of the best chances - I believe - of a song becoming this ubiquitous again is a Christmas song, because it's such a small pool of songs in heavy rotation EVERYWHERE, from schools to

shops to pubs to community centres and beyond. SO my wildcard is It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas by Michael Bublé.

People on BuzzJack actually made a big point of constantly pointing out how few people must have heard 'One Dance' for how popular it was chartwise.

 

(I think that was always overstated but yeah it's nowhere near ubiquitous enough to be mentioned in this thread)

I think Adele’s Rolling in the Deep is possibly the best answer. Just simply for how many people own the album compared to any other

Surely Someone Like You is even more well known than that though?

I don’t know, it’s difficult to say but in many ways Rolling in the Deep is much more distinctive.

 

Plus worldwide I’d definitely think RITD is more known

Surely Someone Like You is even more well known than that though?

 

I'm not sure, I feel like I hear RITD around in various places a lot more and it feels more omnipresent (despite not selling as many)

Either song is a good candidate for the ultimate best known song of the last 15 years I'd say. Where are many people over 75 who aren't still active music fans most likely to hear current hits - the radio if they ever play it, maybe shopping centres, Strictly Come Dancing. I should imagine those songs have both popped up on that multiple times.

 

I'm not so sure there's any song I could confidently say 90%+ of the public would know, from the last 15 years, but those two do probably come closest.

I do think the 21st century was a turning point. Thinking back to conversations I used to have with my uncle in the 90s when he would have been in his 40s, he was very much of the opinion music was better in the 60s and 70s but at least knew what the current music was. Once the 21st century hit he didn't have a clue, yet just a few years later when I was in my mid-20s I was the same myself. I also recall around 2003 my friend who was in his mid-20s and had previously been president of the music society at university didn't know any of the big hits at the time. I found it baffling how he managed to avoid them, but he did.

 

I would say I'm pretty clued up on early 21st century hits because I was in my prime of going out clubbing etc. Thinking back though there were plenty of places you could go where you were guaranteed to avoid modern music such as Flares and Reflex. Even my students union had a 70s and 80s night.

 

There was also the rise of digital TV which meant many weren't restricted to just 4 channels and TV shows wouldn't get anywhere near the number of viewers they used to get. I watched all the big Saturday night TV shows in the 90s such as Noels House Party, but I've never watched an episode of Strictly Come Dancing or Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway.

 

Likewise there's loads of retro radio stations to choose from these days.

 

Songs from adverts is an interesting one. I remember the M&S advert with 'Rather Be' and had a bit of a 'Spaceman' moment when I heard the whole song with all the terrible singing. The point is do people know it's a clip from an actual song or just a 30 second jingle made for the advert.

 

I've also just discovered that 'Rolling in the Deep' charted at the start of 2011, but I managed to avoid it until I went on holiday in the summer of 2012 when it was played everywhere.

I was in a Year 7 assembly a couple weeks ago when a group of musicians put on a show. The idea was to get the students interested in playing an instrument. In order to do so, they played songs that they thought 11-year-olds would recognise. The song that got the best reaction was Blinding Lights. Not only that, but most of the staff seemed to recognise it as well.

 

I don't think One Dance is particularly well known at all despite its 28 years at number one. Blinding Lights is a brilliant, catchy pop song. One Dance isn't.

'Ghost' by Ella Henderson, never heard it anywhere in the past few years.