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Bruno Mars' joyous Carpool Karaoke might just have saved 2016

The singer joins James Corden for a freewheeling, musical cruise through LA that will make you feel better about this hellish year.

Gael Cooper
CNET editor Gael Fashingbauer Cooper, a journalist and pop-culture junkie, is co-author of "Whatever Happened to Pudding Pops? The Lost Toys, Tastes and Trends of the '70s and '80s," as well as "The Totally Sweet '90s." She's been a journalist since 1989, working at Mpls.St.Paul Magazine, Twin Cities Sidewalk, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and NBC News Digital. She's Gen X in birthdate, word and deed. If Marathon candy bars ever come back, she'll be first in line.
Expertise Breaking news, entertainment, lifestyle, travel, food, shopping and deals, product reviews, money and finance, video games, pets, history, books, technology history, generational studies. Credentials
  • Co-author of two Gen X pop-culture encyclopedia for Penguin Books. Won "Headline Writer of the Year"​ award for 2017, 2014 and 2013 from the American Copy Editors Society. Won first place in headline writing from the 2013 Society for Features Journalism.
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Gael Cooper

This has been a year of loss and sadness and war, and many people cannot wait to see 2016 drag its battered self off the calendar and pass the mantle to Baby New Year 2017.

David Bowie, really? And Prince? AND Florence Henderson? AND Alan Thicke AND Arnold Palmer AND Muhammed Ali AND Harper Lee AND AND AND?

Truly a year of suck.

In the midst of darkness, however, there are fifteen minutes of the brightest light, one quarter-hour of sheer joy. Singer Bruno Mars joined James Corden, host of CBS's "The Late Late Show with James Corden," for an exuberantly musical "Carpool Karaoke" cruise through the streets of Los Angeles. (CBS is CNET's parent company.)

During the ride, Corden makes Mars prove he looks better than Corden does in even the silliest hat, pets the singer's silk shirt, discusses Mars' start in music (he still sings a mean Elvis) and makes the one-time professional card player demonstrate his poker face.

Best of all, the two joyously rock out to a bevy of Mars' hits, including "24K Magic," "Versace on the Floor," "Locked Out of Heaven" and a rousing rendition of Mars' blockbuster hit "Uptown Funk."

It's too hot, (hot damn), you're gonna want to call a police, and a fireman. It's too hot (hot damn!), make a dragon want to retire, man.

Don't believe me? Just watch.