10cc’s “I’m Not in Love” sounds more like a mid 80s release than something that came out in 1975.
“Uptown Funk” by Mark Ronson (feat. Bruno Mars) sounds like it should have come out in 1985, by Prince and the Revolution.
“Midnight City”, by M83, came out in 2011 but it’s clearly an 80s song
"Elephant" by Tame Impala is meant for the late 60s/early 70sWhen I first heard Amy Winehouse’s “Rehab,” I really thought it was some deep cut or simply a song I missed from a 60s soul album. The only thing that tipped me off was that the subject matter somehow felt more modern than that.
Parov Stelar’s Booty Swing was released about 5 years ago but sounds like it comes from the 1920’s.
Upon reading, I see it does sample a song from 1938, but the whole thing still sounds ancient.
I felt the same way the first time I heard Gabriella Cilmi’s 2008 hit “Sweet About Me”. Still hard to believe she was only 16 when this was recorded. :eek:
The Romantics’ That’s What I Like About You sounds like it could come from each decade from the 1960’s to today (I think it’s from 1980). 5 Seconds of Summer, the boy (and actual instrument-playing) band covered a year or two ago and it sounds current.
Some acts are deliberately retro, such as Acid House Kings. Their track “Sunday Morning” is a 1970s song they released in 2005, which describes a lot of the rest of the songs on Sing Along with Acid House Kings, especially “Tonight Is Forever”, a disco track.
Other acts are ahead of their time. Big Star was grunge avant la lettre, especially with songs like “Life Is White” and, for the poppier side, “You Get What You Deserve”. But, of course, grunge was a retro movement of sorts, too, in that it was a direct offshoot of punk, which was a back-to-basics attempt to revive Rock And Roll Radio! in the face of the changing world of the 1970s, so “Mod Lang” or the great “September Gurls” would have worked pretty much unchanged in the 1950s or 1960s, with at most a slight change of instrumentation.
I’ve always felt that Raggadeath was sadly too far ahead of their time. Had they come out later during the times of later Korn, Limp Bizkit, Distubed, etc they would have been huge.
As a wrote in another thread, awhile back, The Black Angels seem to do a pretty good job of being The Doors.
I Used to Cry Mercy, Mercy by the Lamplighters was recorded in 1953, but it so resembles the soul sound of the 1960’s to my ears.
Excellent choice, I seriously considered using this song as a second example in my OP but decided against it because its “plausibility” doesn’t extend past the mid-80s in my view. If it had come out in 1990, people would probably have thought that it sounded a bit oldish. Still, there’s no denying that it’s a forward-looking song. It’s 10 years ahead of its time.
Your replies made me realize that it takes some real skills and musical knowledge to pull off a convincing throwback song. Bruno Mars has already been mentioned and his 24K Magic is so perfectly 80s it’s uncanny.
Yet, I find it much more impressive when someone writes a pop song that not only fits its decade but also several of the following decades. Pop music is almost by definition ruled by fast-changing fashions so that songs, even very good ones, can quickly sound dated. It takes something special to write a pop song that can blend in seamlessly both in the present and in the future. If The Year of the Cat had been released in 1983, 1991 or even 2004 instead of 1976, nobody would have batted an eyelid.
Rihanna’s “Love on the Brain” could have been released in the late '60s if you cut the F-bombs.
Junior Senior’s 2002 Move Your Feet sounds retro - maybe 1970s or 1980s… and the main singer sounds like Michael Jackson.
Their 2003 song Rhythm Bandits has 1950s influences but maybe also something extra…
Their 2003’s Shake Your Coconuts sounds like 1970s.
Their 2004’s An itch you can’t scratch sounds like 1980s - or 2010s (like Bruno Mars)
Janelle Monae’s “Dance Apocalyptic” has a very late 50s/early 60s feel to me (not that I was alive then).
I’ve always felt Georgio Morodor/Donna Summer’s “I Feel Love” (1977) could have come out in pretty much any decade after it, too. I just played it for some friends last fall who somehow were not familiar with it, and they thought it was a contemporary song.
September Gurls has always had a very 1980’s/early 1990’s college/alternative rock vibe to me.
Also true, and the fact it works in both eras is testament to the retro nature of grunge and punk.