Song · Pharrell Williams
“Happy” by Pharrell Williams
From the album G I R L (2014)
“Happy” by Pharrell Williams appears on 7 radio countdowns from 5 stations between 2014 and 2025. It was first released in 2014 on the album G I R L. Its best result is #8 on the WTTS Top 50 Songs of 2014. In the combined RockLists rankings it is the #72 indie & aaa song of 2014 and #1,671 indie & aaa song of all time.
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Video from YouTube (iamOTHER). Pressing play loads YouTube's player. Watch on YouTube
Pharrell Williams wrote, produced and sang "Happy" for the Despicable Me 2 soundtrack in 2013, and it went on to double as the lead single from his second album, G I R L, in 2014. It's featherlight uptempo soul, and critics heard Curtis Mayfield in his falsetto; a crew of backing singers, among them Rhea Dummett and Jasmine Murray, backs him up. The video ran a full 24 hours.
Then it simply took over. It hit number one in the US, the UK, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand and 19 other countries, finished as Billboard's number-one single of 2014 and the year's best-selling song on both sides of the Atlantic, and topped the UK chart three separate times. It earned an Academy Award nomination, and at the 57th Grammys a live version won Best Pop Solo Performance while the video won Best Music Video.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
RockLists rankings
Indie & Adult Alternative
All Rock Formats
Year-end countdowns
| Year | # | Station | Countdown | of |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 | 8 | 92.3 WTTS Indianapolis-Bloomington, IN | WTTS Top 50 Songs of 2014 | 50 |
| 2014 | 20 | WXPN Philadelphia, PA | WXPN Year in Review: Top 200 Songs of 2014 | 200 |
All-time and decade countdowns
| Year | # | Station | Countdown | of |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 | 423 | WXPN | WXPN 885 All-Time Greatest Songs (2014) | 885 |
| 2024 | 47 | WXPN | WXPN The 885 Greatest Songs of the 21st Century (2024) | 885 |
| 2025 | 552 | The Current | 893 Essential Songs of The Current: 2005 to Now | 893 |
| 2025 | 140 | 90.9 The Bridge | 90.9 The Bridge Top 909 Songs of the 21st Century | 909 |
| 2025 | 15 | The Colorado Sound | The Colorado Sound Top 800 Mood Booster Songs | 800 |
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