A brand new app referred to as Rewind needs to make it simpler for music followers to discover the highest songs of a long time previous. Hoping to cater to client demand for nostalgic music experiences, Rewind permits customers to “time journey” via the music charts from 1960 via 2010 to find out about how older songs have influenced as we speak’s hits.
The app was constructed by developer Ziad Al Halabi, whose day job entails cellular app improvement at music streaming service TIDAL. The developer says he enjoys engaged on music apps, having earlier launched an audio participant for musicians, Backtrackit, which gained some 2 million installs.
With Rewind, which initially started as a weekend undertaking, the objective is to supply a portal to discover the older tunes that when dominated the highest charts.
“[What] would it not be like in case you opened your favourite music app in 1991? Or 1965?” the app’s description asks. “What are the largest hits on the time? Who’re the highest artists or the rising new ones?”
Picture Credit: Rewind
For older music followers, these questions could also be simpler to reply. However Gen Z brings a brand new group of customers who’re exploring music via apps like TikTok, the place a music’s launch date doesn’t essentially matter. Already, TikTok has proved profitable in introducing youthful folks to well-liked tracks from previous generations, like Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill” or Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams” — each of which went viral on the video app, breaking into the highest charts years after their unique run. And they are not alone.
This curiosity in older music dovetails with different Gen Z “nostalgia” traits, like their embrace of flip phones, Y2K fashion, wired headphones, disposable cameras, 90s music (a desire spanning generations, actually), and naturally, vinyl.
“I’ve all the time been interested by how music has modified over time,” stated Ziad. “Rewind is a capsule of all of the music, artists and main occasions in a single place. The app presents a brand new manner of discovering new previous music which relies on historic eras with somewhat trace of nostalgia,” he continues. “It’s thrilling to see momentum with hundreds of listeners, Rewind is ideal for tastemakers and followers seeking to uncover new music from the nice previous days,” Ziad added.
Picture Credit: Rewind
The app isn’t only a method to browse the charts from years previous, nonetheless. It takes issues a step additional and even contains some trendy twists.
For starters, customers can discover the music from a given yr by high albums and high music movies, along with rising the highest Billboard charts. It additionally delves into related traits from a given time interval. As an example, searching the yr 1991 presents a number of “grunge-defining data,” like Nirvana’s “Nevermind” and Pearl Jam’s “Ten,” amongst others. Different sections current tracks that noticed main radio airtime that yr, extremely anticipated releases and newly shaped bands that emerged that yr, and so forth.
As well as, Rewind encompasses a “information” part that features main occasions and moments from the yr in query. It additionally contains adverts that give it a retro really feel. For instance, in 1965, listeners will see adverts for the primary distortion guitar pedal whereas customers searching the Eighties would possibly see adverts for brand spanking new synth devices that helped form 80s sounds.
For a little bit of enjoyable, the app leveraged ChatGPT to jot down quick critiques for music albums in its “Weekly Discovery” function and used the AI know-how to place collectively mixtapes for various years by asking ChatGPT questions like “are you able to make me a mixtape of 90’s finest guitar riffs?”
One other function presents a method to scroll via a TikTok-style music feed that accompanies annually. Right here, you possibly can take heed to music clips from the time interval in a vertical feed. This explicit function could possibly be higher developed to incorporate “like” or “remark” buttons, however for now you possibly can play or pause the monitor or open the music instantly in TIDAL.
Picture Credit: Rewind
Not surprisingly, given Ziad’s job, Rewind integrates extra deeply with TIDAL, permitting subscribers to stream tracks in full, explains the developer. It’s because his work at TIDAL allowed him to simply entry the API and the TIDAL catalog. But when Rewind catches on, he want to add help for different music apps. Nevertheless, even with no TIDAL subscription, customers can stream the 30-second previews and scroll via the app’s TikTok-like feed.
“The suggestions I’m getting from customers is that regardless of not having a TIDAL subscription, it’s nonetheless a enjoyable expertise to browse the totally different years, get weekly discovery of albums [and] scroll via the TikTok-style feed,” Ziad tells us.
Launched final month, the app gained a number of thousand downloads on its debut weekend and is slowly rising. It’s accessible as a free obtain on each Android and iOS and doesn’t at the moment generate income.
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