Top 40 Kiss Fm 2012 Direct

By the time they hit Number 4—Ellie Goulding’s "Lights"—Mia’s eyes were wet. The song wasn't sad, but the synth arpeggios felt like memories slipping through her fingers.

"I'll pick you up for Thanksgiving," Chloe said, her voice thick.

"Tonight, we are young / So let's set the world on fire / We can burn brighter than the sun."

Mia reached over and turned the key to "ACC." The radio died. The crickets rushed in to fill the silence. top 40 kiss fm 2012

Her best friend, Chloe, had just gotten her driver’s license—a beat-up Honda Civic with a shattered cupholder and a CD player that only ejected if you hit the dashboard just right. Every afternoon, they’d roll down the windows, let the heat swamp the vinyl seats, and turn the volume until the speakers rattled.

That August, Mia had a crisis. Her family was moving three hours away. The "Top 40" that fall would be heard in a different car, on a different frequency (KISS FM existed everywhere, but it never felt the same). The last week before the moving van arrived, they did a ritual drive.

"It's time," Chloe would whisper, pressing the preset button for the third time. The robotic voice of the DJ would crackle through: "KISS FM. Your home for the Top 40." By the time they hit Number 4—Ellie Goulding’s

Mia nodded. "I'll have the Top 40 ready."

She never forgot the list. Not the exact order, not the key changes, not the way the bass thumped through her best friend's broken cupholder. In the years that followed, whenever she heard one of those songs at a wedding reception or a grocery store, she wasn't an adult with a 401(k). She was sixteen, windows down, chasing the horizon with the volume maxed out, convinced that 2012 would last forever.

Number 1 was inevitable. It had been number one for eleven weeks. As the opening synth pulse of "We Are Young" by fun. featuring Janelle Monáe filled the car, Chloe pulled over onto the gravel shoulder of County Road 9. "Tonight, we are young / So let's set

Mia looked at Chloe. Chloe looked at Mia. In the rearview mirror, the summer of 2012 stretched out like a ribbon of asphalt. School was starting. The Mayan calendar hype was dying down. Everyone was getting iPhones that didn't have a home button that stuck.

They stopped for slushies at the gas station. They drove the loop around the high school parking lot. And as the sun bled orange and pink across the cornfields, the countdown began.

They didn't say anything. They just sat there, the engine ticking, the stereo blasting:

But in that moment, frozen in the static of the KISS FM bumper, they were exactly where they belonged.