Rewind's new app lets you "time travel" through music from decades past

A new app called Rewind wants to make it easy for music fans to explore the best songs from decades past. Hoping to meet consumer demand for nostalgic music experiences, Rewind allows users to "travel back in time" through music charts from 1960 to 2010 to learn how old songs influenced today's hits.

The application has been created by the developer Ziad Al Halabi, whose day job is developing mobile apps on the music streaming service TIDAL. The developer says he likes working on music apps, having previously released an audio player for musicians, Backtrackit, which has garnered over 2 million installs.

With Rewind, which started as a weekend project, the goal is to offer a portal to explore the older songs that once dominated the charts.

What would it be like if you opened your favorite music app in 1991? Or in 1965?” the app description asks. What are the biggest hits of the time? Who are the best artists or the new ones on the rise?

For older music fans, these questions may be easier to answer. But Generation Z brings a new group of users who explore music through apps like TikTok, where a song's release date doesn't necessarily matter. TikTok has already introduced the youngest to popular songs from generations past, such as Kate Bush's "Running Up That Hill" or Fleetwood Mac's "Dreams," which went viral on the video app and hit the charts. years after its original release. And they are not the only ones.

This interest in early music dovetails with other Gen Z "nostalgic" trends, such as the adoption of flip phones, the 2000s craze, wired headphones, disposable cameras, '90s music (a preference that spans generations, in fact) and, of course, vinyl.

"I've always been interested in how music has changed over time," says Ziad. “Rewind is a capsule of all the music, artists and big events in one place. The app offers a new way to discover new old music based on historical eras with a little touch of nostalgia.", keep going. "It's exciting to see the momentum with thousands of listeners, Rewind is perfect for tastemakers and fans looking to discover new music from the good old days," adds Ziad.

However, the app is not just a way to check the charts of previous years. It goes a step further and even includes some modern touches.

For starters, users can browse the music of a given year by albums and music videos, as well as Billboard charts. It also delves into the relevant trends of a given period. For example, browsing through the year 1991 offers a selection of "grunge-defining records," including Nirvana's "Nevermind" and Pearl Jam's "Ten," among others. Other sections feature the songs that played the most on the radio that year, the most anticipated releases, and the newly formed bands that emerged that year, etc.

In addition, Rewind includes a "news" section that collects the main events and moments of the year in question. It also includes ads that give it a retro feel. For example, in 1965, listeners will see advertisements for the first distortion pedal for guitar, while users navigating through the 1980s will see advertisements for new synth instruments that helped shape the sounds of the 80s.

To have a little fun the app leveraged ChatGPT to write short music album reviews in its “Weekly Discover” feature and used AI technology to craft mixtapes from different years by asking ChatGPT questions like “can you make me a mixtape of the best 90s guitar riffs ?».

Another feature lets you scroll through a TikTok-style music feed that accompanies each year.. Here you can listen to songs from the period in question vertically. This particular feature could be further developed to include like or comment buttons, but for now you can play or pause the track or open the song directly in TIDAL.

It's no surprise, given Ziad's work, that Rewind integrates more deeply with TIDAL, allowing subscribers to stream songs in their entirety, the developer explains. This is because his job at TIDAL gave him easy access to the TIDAL API and catalog. But if Rewind catches on, you'd like to add compatibility with other DAWs. However, even without a TIDAL subscription, users can listen to 30-second trailers and scroll through the app's feed, similar to TikTok.

"The feedback I'm getting from users is that despite not having a TIDAL subscription, it's still a fun experience to browse through the different years, get weekly album discovery [and] scroll through the feed TikTok-style" Ziad tells us.

Launched a few months ago, the app garnered a few thousand downloads on its debut weekend and is slowly growing. It is free to download on both Android and iOS and currently does not generate revenue.