2015 May 2026

But while Adele owned the fall, Drake owned the summer. His mixtape If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late signaled a shift away from the traditional album cycle toward streaming dominance. The song "Hotline Bling" (and its meme-able dance video) became inescapable.

Meanwhile, Netflix transformed from a DVD-by-mail service into a global juggernaut. In , Netflix expanded to 130 new countries at a single press conference. It also released its first original movie, Beasts of No Nation , and premiered the true crime documentary Making a Murderer , which dominated watercooler conversation for two solid months. But while Adele owned the fall, Drake owned the summer

When we look back at the tapestry of the 21st century, certain years stand out as hinges—points where the door swung from one era to the next. The year 2015 is undeniably one of those hinges. Sandwiched between the recovery from the Great Recession and the tumultuous political landscape of the late 2010s, 2015 was a year of acceleration. It was the year streaming killed the linear TV star, the year artificial intelligence began to whisper in our pockets, and the year the world signed a historic pact to save the planet. When we look back at the tapestry of

However, was also the year of the "Mad Max: Fury Road" miracle. George Miller’s post-apocalyptic opus stunned critics and audiences alike, winning six Academy Awards and being hailed as one of the greatest action films ever made. Alongside it, The Martian brought hard sci-fi back to Earth, Inside Out proved Pixar could still make adults weep, and Jurassic World reminded us that dinosaurs are forever bankable. The Soundtrack of 2015: From Adele to Drake Musically, 2015 was a year of dominance by two very different artists: Adele and Drake. In November, Adele dropped 25 , featuring the behemoth single "Hello." The music video broke the Vevo record for most views in 24 hours, and the album sold 3.38 million copies in its first week in the US alone—a figure that seemed impossible in the streaming era. Adele dropped 25