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.
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. But while Adele owned the fall, Drake owned the summer
Even Instagram, the photo-sharing app, changed the game by dumping its square-only format in , allowing portrait and landscape photos. This subtle change turned Instagram from a novelty into the primary portfolio for photographers. Sports and Tragedy In sports, 2015 gave us the "Phantom Point" in the Cricket World Cup, the rise of the Golden State Warriors (winning the NBA Finals and beginning the "small ball" revolution), and the Rugby World Cup victory for New Zealand's All Blacks. However, was also the year of the "Mad