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Show HN: What was the world listening to? Music charts, 20 countries (1940–2025)

https://88mph.fm/
loading story #47368027
It's a fun project, but I wish the years weren't locked to 5 year intervals.

EDIT: Actually many years are missing, it seems. For Norway there's nothing between 2000 and 1985, but I guess that's how the charts are pulled?

I also noticed that when you only have these 5 year jumps, certain genres are completely missing. Take US charts - Grunge is non-existent, as it had not yet hit the charts in 1990, and by 1995 it was over.

loading story #47365446
Other fun site in that niche (Since 2013), you can select the country + year and just "tune in": https://app.radiooooo.com/
This has a lot of overlap with Radiooooo

https://app.radiooooo.com/

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loading story #47367848
Very nice project! That browser tab is staying open for days.

I found a small mistake, the Argentina 2000 list [1] shows "Babasónicos - Ella usó mi cabeza como un revolver", but the actual song by Babasónicos (the one that plays) is titled "Cómo eran las cosas", and "Ella usó mi cabeza como un revolver" is a song by Soda Stereo.

1: https://88mph.fm/ar/2000

loading story #47365787
I would love more granular data, like state or zip code. It would help settle a decade old (and zero stakes) dispute I have with a friend. I'm sure that's your top priority, so if you could get on that, that would be great
loading story #47365516
It's pretty cool! I cross "validated" with the charts of where I'm from and the results seem to be fairly accurate.

One question/request: How did you get the data, and would it be possible to filter by language or genre?

TBH I'm actually trying to chase which songs were popular when I was a kid - for example I distinctly remember Astronomia (Tony Iggy) being massive in the club/party "scene" (and even in malls I think!) - but these charts only give what everyone was listening to - so they're pop songs in the local language.

loading story #47365510
Hi! I noticed that the button open in spotify opens a premade spotify playlist, but the songs seem to be wrong. I also noticed that the covers on the website match the ones of the mismatched songs. Perhaps those songs only don’t exist on spotify? For refrence i opened the 2005 Japan playlist.
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I picked India and a random year, 1985 [1]. The number 3 song caught my eye cause it had the thumbnail of a famous movie that came out in 2004, although the correct song played. When I went to the linked Spotify playlist for that year, the included song at number 3 was wrong and linked to the song from the 2004 movie.

Not sure what the data source is, but needs a little bit of cleaning and validation. Not critiquing, this project is awesome, just giving a heads up.

[1]: https://88mph.fm/in/1985

loading story #47364901
This is amazing! One of the coolest projects I've seen on here tbh
{"deleted":true,"id":47364874,"parent":47325296,"time":1773411740,"type":"comment"}
This is such a fun project to browse.

A few things need ironing out as others have mentioned, but I'll be following the project. Cheers!

Suggest a chart doesn't allow for selection of other countries not already present it seems like.

Otherwise, very nice project.

loading story #47364945
Very cool! One small UI grip: When I play a song the control at appears in the bottom of the page blocks the footer on the main page.

I assume you looked into automating the charts for new countries/years. What were the blockers for that?

loading story #47325797
Great ! Great ! And fun ! But.. and you can skip destinations only by 5 years :(

Waiting for more countries (like, in Africa).. and more than first 10 ??

I recommend listening to DJ Earworm's mashup of the top song across the world [0] to hear a greater variety of countries, albeit for this or last year.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDZ78RbAdxU 11 minutes

In fairness to this post, they probably posted as much as they could get easily and consistently. I feel like the same situation reigns for country history in book shops. When I go to a used book store in Queens, New York, I'm not apt to find any books about Jaipur, India. But, if I were to go to Mumbai, India, I could probably find something. So, maybe we should prevail upon or sponsor people in Africa to volunteer their lists.

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loading story #47363040
Oh la la! Oh la la!

Seriously... I found this very interesting, but for some country (i'm from Italy) maybe the charts are not so accurate (maybe yes, I'm not an expert ;-( ). Despite everything, very nice idea

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Certified AI slope
added a whole new country, curious if my stuff will be added...

nice project :D

loading story #47366430
Was this vibe coded? I found a mistake, clicked the suggest correction button and I couldn’t find the country in the list.

It’s cool though, brings back memories.

You've got my upvote, nice