I was recently surprised to learn that Van Morrison’s “Brown Eyed Girl” came out in 1967, I thought it was from the 70s.
“Everybody’s Got To Learn Sometime” by the Korgis (1980) sounded to me like a late-'60s song when I first heard it.
I could have sworn that I had listened to “You Get What You Give” by the New Radicals shortly after I graduated high school in 1991 (name dropping of Marilyn Manson notwithstanding), as opposed to the year 1998.
Roxy Music’s “Love is the Drug” has a very 80s, New Wave feel to it, but it was released in 1975. They also made a music video to go with it, which is an 80s thing.
Seven and Seven Is - 1966 by Love. Sounds like peak punk circa 1979.
Edwyn Collins Girl Like You. Came out in 94’ and when I first heard it thought "hmm, I don’t think I’ve heard this Bowie song before, must be from the 60s-70s.https://youtu.be/6oqJ0JpMj6I?si=rl2PODykvzMaacSY
I was surprised to hear Black Sabbath’s “Paranoid” in the Vietnam-era Kong: Skull Island - it came out in 1970 but I always think of it as very late ‘70s, for some reason.
The first time I heard Kiss Off by The Violent Femmes I assumed it was a 90s alternative band.
It was released in 1983, the year I was born.
I’m guessing what I was really hearing was the Violent Femmes’ influence on 90s music.
MTV started in August 1981. For the first year or so, they had to fill up much of the time with videos made before that date. I was eleven years old, and loved this new cable channel. Many songs I assumed were from 1981-82 actually date from the late 70s (or even mid 70s). Just one example: “Wheel in the Sky” by Journey. Originally released in 1978, but given heavy rotation on MTV along with songs from their smash 1981 album Escape.
It looks like that whole set of early Journey videos were shot at some concert in Japan…let’s see… yup, a concert just a couple weeks before MTV debuted.
Midnight City by M83 - a song many people would recognize but probably wouldn’t be able to name. i recently tracked it down (i heard it in some random internet thing and it was driving me crazy to find out what it was). I would’ve guessed it was from the 90’s because it feels like this song has been popping up a long time, but turns out it’s from 2011.
“Burning Love” by Elvis. No way was that released in 1972. Oh wait, it was.
Yep. I started hearing Violent Femmes a lot in college in the mid-90s, and I just thought they were another contemporary band for a long time.
The first few times I heard “Rehab” by Amy Winehouse, I thought it was some track from the 60s I had never heard before, but the subject matter and lyrics did not seem genre appropriate. Took me awhile to figure out it was a new song with a retro feel.
I thought the Beach Boys’ “Kokomo” was a 60s track that somehow suddenly became massively popular in the late 80s.
The first time I heard Big Bad Voodoo Daddy’s “You & Me & the Bottle Makes 3 Tonight (Baby),” I assumed it was a cover of a 30s big-band number. (Confusing things further, I also assumed it was the basis for the spoof Simpsons title “You and Me and a Dog Named ‘Free’” - which, of course, is actually based on Lobo’s “Me and You and a Dog Named Boo.”)
When I first heard White Stripes ‘Fell in Love with a Girl’, I was trying figure out how I could have missed this early-80s punk band.
Conversely, when I first heard Van Halen “Eruption”, it was so beyond anything I’d heard that I wondered how a wormhole from the 25th century had opened in my living room.
Before I ever even heard “My Melancholy Baby,” I assumed based on the title alone that it was some kind of slow sultry ballad from the 80s.
When I heard the 1968 Cass Elliot version of the song “Dream a Little Dream of Me”, I assumed that it was written especially for her. In fact, the first recording of it was in 1931. It was sung by Ozzie Nelson. Yes, the Ozzie Nelson who starred on The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet. He was previously a bandleader who occasionally sang.
Smokey Robinson’s The Tears of a Clown came out in 1970. It sounded like a relic of the early days of Motown
I was surprised to learn that 10 Years After’s “I’d Love to Change the World” came out in 1971 and not, well, at least 10 years after that. Sure, the lyrics are kind of hippy-dippy, but the music and especially the amazing lead guitar have a much too modern feel to them.
Much as the original 1932 version of “Try a Little Tenderness” has been almost completely eclipsed by Otis Redding’s 1966 version.
I straight-up thought that “The Way You Move” by Outkast was a cover of an Earth, Wind, & Fire song from the early 80’s, just because it sounded to me like it should’ve been an EWF song.
But not only was it a novel composition by Outkast in 2003, Earth Wind & Fire actually did a cover of it. I guess they agreed with me!