FROM Blondie to Percy Sledge, they are songs that if you think about it, we seem to know almost by osmosis.
Lyrics such as ‘The tide is high but I’m holding on’ and ‘When a man loves a woman, can’t keep his mind on nothin’ else’, are part of our collective pop culture knowledge and we sing-a-long absent-mindedly when they pop up on the radio.
Now new research has proven that these old tracks from so many years ago are more likely to be recognised by young adults than music from today’s charts.
The scientific study by US experts found that millennials’ recognition of songs from the 1960s through to the 1990s is relatively stable over that 40-year period, despite the music dating from before they were even born.
In contrast, and despite this being the peak of the music streaming era, their recognition of musical hits from 2000 to 2015 diminishes rapidly over time.
Stand out songs instantly recognised by younger adults include Percy Sledge’s 1966 chart-topper When A Man Loves A Woman and Blondie’s The Tide is High from 1980.
Study senior author Dr Pascal Wallisch, a clinical assistant professor in the psychology department at New York University (NYU), has published the findings in the science journal PLOS One.
He said: “The 1960s to 1990s was a special time in music, reflected by a steady recognition of pieces of that era - even by today’s millennials.”
While the researchers did not identify what explained the stable level of recognition for songs from the 1960s through to the 1990s, they noted that during that period there was a “significantly greater diversity” of songs reaching the top of the charts compared to 2000 to 2015 and 1940 to 1950.
They also said the large number of popular songs during the latter part of the 20th Century may explain why so many are still recognisable decades later.
But the researchers acknowledged that the findings could be the result of self-selection: there was a considerable correlation between the likelihood of recognising a given song and its corresponding play count on Spotify, which they also measured.
Yet, they said the results nonetheless underscore the popularity of certain songs from the 1960s to the end of the 20th Century, when you could take your pick of iconic artists, from The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, to Madonna and Michael Jackson.
In selecting songs for the study, the researchers included those that reached the No. 1 spot on the Billboard “Top 100” between the years 1940 and 1957 and No. 1 on the Billboard “Hot 100” from 1958 to 2015.
The 643 participants had an average age of 21.3; each presented with a random selection of seven out of the 152 songs in the sample, asked to listen to the selection and report whether they recognised it.
The results revealed three distinct phases in collective memory, according to the researchers. The first phase showed a steep linear drop-off in recognition for the music from this millennium, steadily declining, year by year, from 2015 to 2000; the second phase was marked by a stable plateau from the 1960s to the 1990s, with no notable decline during this 40-year period.
The third phase, similar to the first, was characterised by a more gradual drop-off during the 1940s and 1950s.
Dr Wallisch added: “Spotify was launched in 2008, well after nearly 90 per cent of the songs we studied were released, which indicates millennials are aware of the music that, in general, preceded their lives and are nonetheless choosing to listen to it.”
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