A brand new app known as Rewind needs to make it simpler for music followers to discover the highest songs of many years previous. Hoping to cater to shopper demand for nostalgic music experiences, Rewind permits customers to “time journey” via the music charts from 1960 via 2010 to study how older songs have influenced at the moment’s hits.
The app was constructed by developer Ziad Al Halabi, whose day job includes cellular app growth 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 mission, the purpose is to supply a portal to discover the older tunes that when dominated the highest charts.
“[What] wouldn’t it 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 individuals to common tracks from previous generations, like Kate Bush’s “Operating Up That Hill” or Fleetwood Mac’s “Goals” — each of which went viral on the video app, breaking into the highest charts years after their unique run. And they aren’t alone.
This curiosity in older music dovetails with different Gen Z “nostalgia” traits, like their embrace of flip telephones, Y2K trend, wired headphones, disposable cameras, 90s music (a choice spanning generations, the truth is), and naturally, vinyl.
“I’ve all the time been focused on how music has modified over time,” mentioned Ziad. “Rewind is a capsule of all of the music, artists, and main occasions in a single place. The app presents a brand new method of discovering new outdated music which is predicated on historic eras with just a little trace of nostalgia,” he continues. “It’s thrilling to see momentum with hundreds of listeners, Rewind is ideal for tastemakers and followers trying to uncover new music from the great outdated days,” Ziad added.
Picture Credit: Rewind
The app isn’t only a option to browse the charts from years previous, nevertheless. It takes issues a step additional and even contains some fashionable twists.
For starters, customers can discover the music from a given 12 months by prime albums and prime music movies, along with rising the highest Billboard charts. It additionally delves into related traits from a given time interval. As an illustration, looking the 12 months 1991 presents a number of “grunge-defining information,” like Nirvana’s Nevermind and Pearl Jam’s Ten, amongst others. Different sections current tracks that noticed main radio airtime that 12 months, extremely anticipated releases and newly fashioned bands that emerged that 12 months, and so forth.
As well as, Rewind incorporates a “information” part that features main occasions and moments from the 12 months 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 looking the Eighties may see adverts for brand spanking new synth devices which helped form 80s sounds.
For a little bit of enjoyable, the app leveraged ChatGPT to put in writing brief evaluations for music albums in its “Weekly Discovery” function and used the AI expertise to place collectively mixtapes for various years by asking ChatGPT questions like “are you able to make me a mixtape of 90’s greatest guitar riffs?”
One other function presents a option to scroll via a TikTok-style music feed that accompanies every year. Right here, you possibly can take heed to music clips from the time interval in a vertical feed. This specific function may very well be higher developed to incorporate “like” or “remark” buttons, however for now you possibly can play or pause the monitor or open the music straight 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 is because his work at TIDAL allowed him to simply entry the API and the TIDAL catalog. But when Rewind catches on, he wish to add assist for different music apps. Nevertheless, even and not using a 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 completely different years, get weekly discovery of albums, scroll via the TikTok model feed,” Ziad tells us.
Launched final month, the app gained a couple of thousand downloads on its debut weekend and is slowly rising. It’s obtainable as a free obtain on each Android and iOS and doesn’t at the moment generate income.