Luckily there is still room for songs like “Die with a smile”

In the age of TikTok and songs written with potential dances and memes in mind, there’s thankfully still room for songs like “Die with a smile”, the surprising duet between Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars that since its release last August 16th has made its way into the world charts until this week conquering the first place in the list of the most streamed songs globally on Spotify: with 64.6 million total listens in the last week alone“Die with a smile” dethroned another hit that went against the grain of what’s trending on the charts these days, Billie Eilish’s “Birds of a Feather.”

Yes, of course, in the middle there are two absolute stars of pop of the last twenty years, who together they have sold over 300 million records worldwide and repeatedly reached the top of the charts. But – as they say – Gaga and Mars didn’t bring it from home: the generational change in global pop in recent years has spared no one. Ring the intercom Katy Perrywho was also the protagonist, alongside Lady Gaga herself, of the most famous rivalry in pop between the 2000s and the 2010s (so different from each other, when in 2013 one released an ultra-pop album like “Roar”, the other responded with her most experimental and visionary work, “Artpop”): the 39-year-old Los Angeles pop star was not satisfied with returning to the scene with an ultra-TikTok friendly piece like “Woman’s World” to reclaim her place on the scene.

Fans must have perceived a lack of genuineness and authenticity behind the operation: the single, the first extract from the album “143”, to be released on September 20, turned out to be a resounding failure. Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars, both 38 years old, instead made a reasoning apparently opposite to that of Perry, joining forces for .an old-fashioned piece in its sounds, structure and writingwhich requires more than one listen before it takes hold. Not exactly a hit meant to be a TikTok sensation.

Maybe that’s what rewarded them: with “Die with a smile” they basically filled a void in a music market that was now saturated with songs with choruses set for 15-second clips. “Bruno and I have a lot of mutual respect and had been talking about collaborating for a while. I was finishing my album in Malibu and one night after a long day he asked me to come to his studio to listen to something he was working on. It was around midnight when I got there and I was amazed when I heard what he had started doing. We stayed up all night and finished writing and recording the song. Bruno’s talent is inexplicable. His music and his vision are top notch. There’s no one like him,” Gaga says of the duet, her first with her colleague. And the Honolulu singer-songwriter adds: “Working with Gaga has been such an honor. She’s an icon and she makes this song magical. I’m so excited for everyone to hear it.”

“Die with a smile”, produced by four hands by D’Mile (real name Dernst Emile II, born in 1985) and Andrew Watttwo very different producers, one specialized in contemporary r&b and the other capable of ranging from indie to rock, is a tribute to the 70s that however sounds surprisingly and profoundly modern. The Gaga-Mars duo has collected a total of 133.7 million streams on Spotify in the last two weeks. And the one from “Die with a smile”, we’re going out on a limb, is a success destined to grow further, against all odds.