The biggest hit of 2015 was "Uptown Funk," a collaboration between Bruno Mars and guitarist/producer Mark Ronson. Ronson says making it took "six or seven months of chasing Bruno around on tour."
Barry Sonnenfeld, who would later direct the movies Get Shorty and Men in Black, was the director of photography on the "Rock the Casbah" video for The Clash.
The Matchbox Twenty song "3 AM" is about the difficult times lead singer Rob Thomas spent caring for his mother, who had cancer.
The Ricky Martin song "She Bangs" found new life when William Hung performed it so horribly on a 2004 episode of American Idol that it went viral.
Lil Wayne does an unlikely rap in a remix of the Joe Jonas song "Just In Love." The pair met at the 2008 MTV Video Music Awards.
"Diamonds From Sierra Leone" by Kanye West is about the "blood diamonds" mined using child labor in Africa. It also serves as a shout-out to Roc-A-Fella records, known for a diamond-shaped hand signal.
The revered singer-songwriter talks inspiration and explains why she put a mahout in "Drop the Pilot."
Jim talks about the impact of "The Middle" and uses a tree metaphor to describe his songwriting philosophy.
John tells the "St. Elmo's Fire (Man In Motion)" story and explains why he disappeared for so long.
Songwriters have used cards and card games to make sense of heartache, togetherness, and even Gonorrhea.
Emilio talks about what it's like to write and perform with the Tower of Power horns, and why every struggling band should have a friend like Huey Lewis.
The Def Leppard frontman talks about their "lamentable" hit he never thought of as a single, and why he's juiced by his Mott The Hoople cover band.