Meaning, they both got so much radio play at the same time that one will always remind you of the other.
“Name” by the Goo Goo Dolls just came on the radio, and it reminded me that for me, that song is recursive with “Roll to Me” by Del Amitri. Because I remember a span of a few months or weeks during which they were both constantly on the radio, often being both played within the same set. More recently, the same thing happened with “You’re Beautiful” by James Blunt and “Bad Day” by whoever. And back in the day, “Every Breath You Take” and “Sweet Dreams are Made of This.”
I can’t think of any examples, but I would always get this from those Sounds of the 60s/70s/whatever commercials where they’d play a little snippet of each song. They’d all start to meld together so that when I heard the chorus for one, I expected the chorus from the next song from an old commercial to come right after it.
I associate albums with computer games - from when I would listen to an album in heavy rotation while working to finish a game (this was before games had actual soundtracks). This mainly applies to the mid-90’s.
The connections can get pretty weird. For instance, Nirvana’s Unplugged in New Yorkmakes me think of Doom 2, *the Best of Bryan Ferry *makes me think of Speedball, and Tori Amos in general makes me think of Lemmings.
But in the summer of 1979, it seemed as if there were exactly 2 non-disco songs that got played on the radio constantly, so even though they sound nothing alike, I always expect to hear one after I’ve heard the other:
Meat Loaf’s “Paradise by the Dashboard Light”
Cheap Trick’s “I Want You to Want Me”
I don’t know if “recursive” is the right word—maybe “mutually referential”? I dunno.
Anyway, the two that I can think of are “Come Dancing” by the Kinks and “Our House” by Madness. Both were popular at about the same time; both are nostalgic (looking back at the singer’s youth); both videos feature an air guitar solo on a tennis racket; and both are great songs that more-or-less introduced me to what were to become favorite bands.
Back in the summer of '96, I was working in an ice cream shop and we had the radio tuned to an all-hits station that seemed to play the same 10 songs over and over and over again. All. Day. Long.
The following all kinda blur into a single song in my memory:
Whitetown - Your Woman
Spice Girls - Say You’ll Be There
Savage Garden - *I Want You *(as an aside, they also qualify for most misleading band name ever)
Donna Lewis - I Love You Always Forever
We were running a field survey in '89 that had a lot of road access and we’d leave the windows down and music cranked as we collected samples. Seemingly almost every hour on AM radio that year we heard the same two songs; Tears For Fears Sowing The Seeds Of Love and The Fine Young Cannibal’s She Drives Me Crazy. Again and again… and again.
The Verve Pipe’s “The Freshman” and Third Eye Blind’s “Semi-Charmed Life.” They came out at around the same time. I also associate those two songs with “Pole Sitter” by Harvey Danger.
