The Most Common Tune from Every Month Since January 1980: 40 Years of Altering Musical Tastes in 50 Minutes

As Helen Reddy sang within the 70s:

You reside your life within the songs you hear

On the rock n’ roll radio…

The 80s ushered in a brand new period, leaving the music business ceaselessly modified, although the songs themselves retained their energy to talk to us on a deeply private degree.

In 1979, the English New Wave band The Buggles’ “Video Killed the Radio Star” – which famously grew to become the very first music performed on MTV the next 12 months (1980) – was getting loads of consideration.

40 years later Puerto Rican rapper and reggaeton artist Dangerous Bunny dominates, which speaks not solely to the general public’s evolving musical tastes but additionally to the expanded entry and alternatives of the Web age.

Listening to all 512 songs on Boogiehead’s mashup Most Common Tune Every Month Since January 1980 of their entirety would take over 24 hours, so Boogiehead settles as an alternative on a single consultant phrase, getting the job accomplished in a whirlwind 50 minutes. Watch it above.

For many people, that’s all it takes to unleash a flood of reminiscences.

Queen, Madonna, David Bowie, and Michael Jackson make sturdy showings, as do, extra not too long ago, Rhianna, Beyoncé, Girl Gaga, Bruno Mars, and Ariana Grande.

Elsewhere, there are reminders that fame is not only fleeting, however usually tethered to a single hit.

That stated, generally these hits have outstanding endurance.

Witness Dexys Midnight Runners’ Come On Eileen from 1982, with its prescient lyric “I’ll hum this tune ceaselessly…”

And a few songs develop into an surprising sluggish burn. How else to elucidate one of many third-to-last earworms on Boogiehead’s checklist, “Operating Up That Hill” from English singer-songwriter Kate Bush’s 1985 album Hounds of Love?

Its look on the hit collection Stranger Issues led it to go viral on TikTok, netting the 64-year-old Bush a number of latest followers of their teenagers and 20s in addition to a pair million {dollars}. Speak about outdated wine in new bottles!

Forbes’ Peter Suciu observes how songs’ shelf lives and in-roads are longer and wider than they have been within the 80s and 90s:

Operating Up That Hill has definitely grow to be extra well-liked now than it was when it was launched – and one issue might be that social media has modified the way in which folks hearken to music. In 1985, when Michael Jackson was the undisputed King of Pop, Kate Bush would have been relegated to “various” music radio stations, which have been few and much between, or faculty radio.

Readers, what music from Boogiehead’s Most Common Tune Every Month Since January 1980 do you most want would make a comeback? Which of the newer songs might you think about listening to forty years from now? Tell us within the feedback.

Hearken to the playlist of each music featured on the Most Common Tune Every Month Since January 1980 right here.

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– Ayun Halliday is the Chief Primatologist of the East Village Inky zine and writer, most not too long ago, of Artistic, Not Well-known: The Small Potato Manifesto and Artistic, Not Well-known Exercise Ebook. Observe her @AyunHalliday.