One Hit Wonders Nostalgic Playlist
Just because a song is outdated doesn’t mean it will evoke nostalgia. If you keep Beyoncé on a regular rotation, listening to “Crazy in Love” probably won’t bring you back to 2003 every time. But I found the kind of music that was more likely to evoke nostalgia: the miracle of one hit.
“Mambo number 5”, “Two princes”, “Genius of love”, “All the time of the party”, “There are only two of us” (any version). They burst onto the stage, they disappeared, their sound is tied to a moment in time.
Today’s featured playlist actually consists of many playlists. For me, it was a Filtr playlist of 159 songs on Apple Music that dates back to 1966 but is mostly focused on the 80s / 00s. For over 400,000 people, this is a Spotify playlist of 100 songs that relies more on 00s and even 10s:
Or scale up a decade; has custom playlists with a single blow from the 70s , 80s and 90s , 2000s , 2010s (if you allow Maroon 5 and John Legend slide), and any combination thereof. Spotify also has several “albums” of hits for specific decades; the 90s compilation opens strongly with “I Love You Always Forever”. Search for “one hit wonders” and select any compilation you like. These collections are insane, you will never agree with all their choices, but you will already love them.
Play this music selfishly. Skip any song that you don’t immediately recognize (at least after the chorus starts playing). Heck, skip any song that doesn’t immediately smell of bowling, the back seat of a car, or the last dance of the bat mitzvah. Soak in. You’re just a teenage sack of dirt, baby.