TORONTO — It should come as no surprise that 2014 was all about that bass (no treble).
The buttocks were bound to bust out after a twerk-filled 2013… and Meghan Trainor was ready to provide the official anthem.
Her ubiquitous hit celebrated having “all the right junk in all the right places” because, according to her, “boys, they like a little more booty to hold at night.”
The 2014 bum bandwagon was driven by artists like Nicki Minaj, Jennifer Lopez and Iggy Azalea.
At the Grammy Awards in January, Beyoncé got a little cheeky while performing “Drunk in Love” and hubby Jay-Z couldn’t resist grabbing a handful.
Beyoncé’s bum was back in late November in a bizarre video for her song “7/11.”
In August, Minaj released “Anaconda” with a CD cover showing her squatting for the camera whilst testing the strength of thong fabric.
The video for the song was packed with more booty shaking than an airport strip club during an earthquake. Not surprisingly, it was viewed more than 327 million times by year’s end (though, in fairness, at least 100 million of those views were by one 14-year-old boy in Saskatchewan).
Bottom-blessed Lopez included a track called “Booty” on her album A.K.A. but it didn’t really take off until it was remixed with additional vocals by Iggy Azalea. In its first three months online, the video for “Booty” topped 83 million views.
Lopez and Azalea brought their buttocks together in November for a performance of the song at the end of the American Music Awards.
Lopez told MTV News she was thrilled ample derrières were finally having their day.
“It’s about time,” she said. “Before we were just considered like heavy, like we weren’t ‘in shape’ or whatever if you had a big butt or something. So now it’s kind of nice that people are embracing womanly curves in that way.”
But — and it’s a big but — the glorification of the gargantuan gluteus was not limited to the music industry.
In late November, TV personality Kim Kardashian took a crack at breaking the Internet by exposing her oiled-up tush (and just about everything else) in Paper magazine.
READ MORE: Businesses cash in as women chase ‘bigger butts’
Men weren’t going to take the booty boon sitting down. Though definitely less bountiful, the bare bums of stars like Nick Jonas, Charlie Hunnam and Hugh Jackman also made headlines.
In October, Jonas put his boy band rep firmly behind him by flashing his firm behind in a photo published in Flaunt magazine.
Teen pop star Cody Simpson’s bare buttocks were too much for Instagram in May. He posted a rear view photo of his cherubic cheeks that was quickly yanked.
“Looks like Instagram didn’t like my ass,” Simpson tweeted on May 19.
Also in May, audiences got a glimpse of Wolverine’s surprisingly non-hirsute hindquarters when Hugh Jackman dared to bare in the Montreal-shot X-Men: Days of Future Past.
On Live with Kelly & Michael, the Aussie actor said it was his idea to flash his backside in the flashback scene.
“The movie has Wolverine traveling back in time to prevent something cataclysmic from happening in the future. So, I land back in 1973, I wake up — this is what the script says — next to a girl, who I don’t remember, and I get out of bed wearing boxer shorts,” Jackman explained.
“And I was like, ‘I’m sorry, I don’t know about America, but in Australia, if you’re next to a really good looking girl, you’re not getting out with boxer shorts on.’ So yeah, I went commando and we just went for it.”
Dom Hemingway debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2013 but didn’t really roll out until 2014, so Jude Law’s outdoor bare bum scene is an honourary member of the Year of the Booty.
Same goes for The F Word, which premiered in Toronto in 2013 but opened in cinemas this past summer. In the made-in-Toronto comedy, former boy wizard Daniel Radcliffe bares his butt as he runs into Lake Ontario.
Male posteriors were also showcased on the small screen in 2014 — and we’re not even counting just about every episode of Game of Thrones.
Hunnam ended the Sons of Anarchy season with a bang (literally) that highlighted his heiny and quickly spread online (go ahead, do a Google search… we’ll wait).
Actor Josh Hartnett’s comeback in Penny Dreadful included a bedroom romp with Billie Piper in which he showed off his rump.
No male celebrities shared more rear views in 2014, though, than Internet sensations The Janoskians.
The Brooks brothers — Beau, Jai and Luke — didn’t shy away from showing what their mama gave them and, in the process, kept the GIF industry alive.
So, as we look back at 2014 and celebrate the backside, we can’t help but wonder what the new year will bring. Will we see Michael Bublé and Pitbull bumping butts in a music video? Or will celebrities find a new body part to highlight?
Hold on, elbows — 2015 could be your year to shine.
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