The tide has been stemmed. I no longer have to walk into a branch of, say, Accessorize, and feel like I’m back in my first school disco just because they’re playing Aha.
Nor have I been frequenting 80s revival discos to get a fix of high energy pop. Truth be told, I haven’t been frequenting any discos. I don’t think I was very frequent about them in the first place.
But in the comfort of your own home, it’s quite fun to look up some music from your school days. You can still have that whole ‘do you remember where you were when you heard…?’. (And then, if you’re so inclined, you can email your 80s friends on Facebook, and see if they do too.)
Part of the fun of it is also who different songs evoke. For whatever reasons, you’ll have a particular friend who liked track X, and someone else who liked something completely different. It’s like a school roll call in musical form, moving from person to person.
But another part of the fun comes from that devilishly clever Amazon-style ‘if you liked this, you’ll like…’ Or equally, ‘people who listened to the track you just picked also listened to…’
I am back onto eMusic, a service a friend told me about around Christmas time. I have already used up my free credits in a big rush, and now I am paying for my musical indulgences. They operate in this ‘recommending’ way, and so as soon as you select one thing, you get to see a few more options that are seen to be similar.
I guess it’s the online equivalent of flipping through albums in a bargain section, and suddenly having a ‘gosh I’d forgotten all about them!’ moment. In terms of the musical roll call, it’s a bit like having the class surround you, turning round in a circle blindfolded, and suddenly pointing at one of them. Then doing it again a few more times. (No, thankfully my school discos, while scary, were not that scary.)
Kindly, the service will also tell you which are the popular tracks. So if you only want the one-hit wonder, you don’t have to remember which album they are on. And of course, it helps you spend your credits that bit faster.