alt Hacker NewsShow HN: What was the world listening to? Music charts, 20 countries (1940–2025)
I built this because I wanted to know what people in Japan were listening to the year I was born. That question spiraled: how does a hit in Rome compare to what was charting in Lagos the same year? How did sonic flavors propagate as streaming made musical influence travel faster than ever? 88mph is a playable map of music history: 230 charts across 20 countries, spanning 8 decades (1940–2025). Every song is playable via YouTube or Spotify. It's open source and I'd love help expanding it — there's a link to contribute charts for new countries and years. The goal is to crowdsource a complete sonic atlas of the world.
Comments
Impressed - good job etc
Other fun site in that niche (Since 2013), you can select the country + year and just "tune in": https://app.radiooooo.com/
Very nice project! That browser tab is staying open for days.
I found a small mistake, the Argentina 2000 list [1] shows "Babasónicos - Ella usó mi cabeza como un revolver", but the actual song by Babasónicos (the one that plays) is titled "Cómo eran las cosas", and "Ella usó mi cabeza como un revolver" is a song by Soda Stereo.
I would love more granular data, like state or zip code. It would help settle a decade old (and zero stakes) dispute I have with a friend. I'm sure that's your top priority, so if you could get on that, that would be great
It's pretty cool! I cross "validated" with the charts of where I'm from and the results seem to be fairly accurate.
One question/request: How did you get the data, and would it be possible to filter by language or genre?
TBH I'm actually trying to chase which songs were popular when I was a kid - for example I distinctly remember Astronomia (Tony Iggy) being massive in the club/party "scene" (and even in malls I think!) - but these charts only give what everyone was listening to - so they're pop songs in the local language.
Hi! I noticed that the button open in spotify opens a premade spotify playlist, but the songs seem to be wrong. I also noticed that the covers on the website match the ones of the mismatched songs. Perhaps those songs only don’t exist on spotify? For refrence i opened the 2005 Japan playlist.
I picked India and a random year, 1985 [1]. The number 3 song caught my eye cause it had the thumbnail of a famous movie that came out in 2004, although the correct song played. When I went to the linked Spotify playlist for that year, the included song at number 3 was wrong and linked to the song from the 2004 movie.
Not sure what the data source is, but needs a little bit of cleaning and validation. Not critiquing, this project is awesome, just giving a heads up.
I listened to my country's old music (India) and although some dates are missing. Overall, really impressive.
The thing that I find amazing is that I have listened to songs from 1950 from the "mera joota hai japaani" to quite some old songs. There were only a few songs that I hadn't heard in total. (I have heard the movie awaara from which the song is, had gotten quite famous in Russia during that time too)
Lata Mangeshkar truly dominated the Indian records. She was truly an Nightingale of India (Rest in peace)
It was from the 1995 -> 2000/2005 shift that I found Indian music to have this feeling of "old" to "new", is this even an Indian specific effect or all across the world?
I feel like the reasons I know the retro songs are because for example the 1950's song is so iconic that nearly 70-75 years later, we are comfortable singing it. I think that also is because of India's Independence being in 1947 and the song being a patriotic song (essentially meaning that no matter what nation's clothes I wear, I will always be an Hindustani)
1995's Tujhe Dekha toh ye jaana sanam and DDLJ and Jaa Simran Jaa is like SRK's magnus opus that the actor is defined by this era.
I think that the one of the reasons that new gen knows about these songs is also because our parents listen to these songs and jukeboxes within the house and my father had the habit of tuning into 92.7 when I had to go to school and they always had retro songs. Although we only listened for 5 minutes but I definitely remember some songs that I heard on the radio (Gulaabi Aakhein)
It also solved one of the mysteries I had on what song is used by the popcorn makers who come near homes, they are/were so catchy. I used to think it was the song "twisted"[0] but that movie came out sort of recent and I couldn't understand but it was with this app that I found that twisted song was a remix of the 1955's third most famous song by lata mangeshkar (mann dole mera tann dole) from the iconic movie naagin.
It truly feels like music sums up some aspects of my country and usually the music which gets famous is because the movie becomes generational too that its quote can be referenced even till today. I can only imagine the same for some other countries as well.
It makes me wish to listen to other countries musics to learn about their culture.
Joota hai japani/writing this comment made me remember of an experience from my life. There is another song from the same movie "awara" known as "Kisi ki muskarahoton par ho nisar" and I was once very ill and y'know how you feel really sad when you're ill or something, I then remember listening to this song and I am not sure but that day I ate some biscuit Krack jack and I really felt happy/better so that had the effect of me preferring those biscuits a lot too. I still eat those biscuits sometimes and listen to this song.
It also reminds me of, I had a music teacher in my school, Prem sir [Prem meaning love], and being honest I have never seen a teacher this patient with kids. He would play songs and we would try to guess. He used to tell us stories about him playing flutes near his house iirc and I still remember him singing "Achutam Keshavam Krishna Damodaram" song in his voice. He was one of the best teachers I had. His passion in music was seen by his patience and how he treated us nicely even if we are shouting as kids and making ruckus, he would then sometimes sing the tunes of song and then have us guess it and the whole class would be pin drop silent except his music and he is an expert of many music instruments. He is such a kind and patient soul. He used to sing these retro songs and the music teachers in our school so that was another source of influence of retro songs even though the gap between my generation and songs are large, but its the teachers and everyone who introduced us.
Thank you for making this app kind stranger. I hope many others feel the same way about some sense of nostalgia/remembering past events like I did with your application.
This is amazing! One of the coolest projects I've seen on here tbh
This is such a fun project to browse.
A few things need ironing out as others have mentioned, but I'll be following the project. Cheers!
Suggest a chart doesn't allow for selection of other countries not already present it seems like.
Otherwise, very nice project.
Very cool! One small UI grip: When I play a song the control at appears in the bottom of the page blocks the footer on the main page.
I assume you looked into automating the charts for new countries/years. What were the blockers for that?
Great ! Great ! And fun ! But.. and you can skip destinations only by 5 years :(
Waiting for more countries (like, in Africa).. and more than first 10 ??
Certified AI slope
Oh la la! Oh la la!
Seriously... I found this very interesting, but for some country (i'm from Italy) maybe the charts are not so accurate (maybe yes, I'm not an expert ;-( ). Despite everything, very nice idea
added a whole new country, curious if my stuff will be added...
nice project :D
Was this vibe coded? I found a mistake, clicked the suggest correction button and I couldn’t find the country in the list.
It’s cool though, brings back memories.
You've got my upvote, nice
[dead]
It's a fun project, but I wish the years weren't locked to 5 year intervals.
EDIT: Actually many years are missing, it seems. For Norway there's nothing between 2000 and 1985, but I guess that's how the charts are pulled?
I also noticed that when you only have these 5 year jumps, certain genres are completely missing. Take US charts - Grunge is non-existent, as it had not yet hit the charts in 1990, and by 1995 it was over.