[HN Gopher] Show HN: What was the world listening to? Music char...
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Show HN: What was the world listening to? Music charts, 20
countries (1940-2025)
I built this because I wanted to know what people in Japan were
listening to the year I was born. That question spiraled: how does
a hit in Rome compare to what was charting in Lagos the same year?
How did sonic flavors propagate as streaming made musical influence
travel faster than ever? 88mph is a playable map of music history:
230 charts across 20 countries, spanning 8 decades (1940-2025).
Every song is playable via YouTube or Spotify. It's open source and
I'd love help expanding it -- there's a link to contribute charts
for new countries and years. The goal is to crowdsource a complete
sonic atlas of the world.
Author : matteocantiello
Score : 97 points
Date : 2026-03-10 16:18 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (88mph.fm)
(TXT) w3m dump (88mph.fm)
| rubenflamshep wrote:
| 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?
| matteocantiello wrote:
| Thanks! I'll fix that. Re charts: English-speaking countries
| were easy to scrape automatically, and recent charts for most
| countries were findable too. But older charts for non-English
| markets are a different story. For old Italian top 10s, for
| instance, I ended up relying on my own judgment and the fact
| that I speak the language. Trustable repos simply don't exist
| for a lot of that material. That's why I think crowdsourcing is
| the right call here, even if it's slower. And honestly, I like
| the idea of making this a collective exercise.
| t23414321 wrote:
| 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 ??
| woldemariam wrote:
| I see Kenya
| Nzen wrote:
| 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.
| globular-toast wrote:
| What is this? Every country in the world is listening to the
| same generic reggaeton song?
| Qc17 wrote:
| 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
| matteocantiello wrote:
| Thanks! Also from Italy :) For Italian hits I took data from
| this repo: https://www.hitparadeitalia.it//hp_yends/ But yes,
| there might be mistakes across the charts. Sources used are
| documented here: https://github.com/matteocantiello/88mph
| dewey wrote:
| Other fun site in that niche (Since 2013), you can select the
| country + year and just "tune in": https://app.radiooooo.com/
| liviux wrote:
| You've got my upvote, nice
| pilaf wrote:
| Very nice project! That browser tab is staying open for days.
|
| I found a small mistake, the Argentina 2000 list [1] shows
| "Babasonicos - Ella uso mi cabeza como un revolver", but the
| actual song by Babasonicos (the one that plays) is titled "Como
| eran las cosas", and "Ella uso mi cabeza como un revolver" is a
| song by Soda Stereo.
|
| 1: https://88mph.fm/ar/2000
| matteocantiello wrote:
| Thanks for catching this! Fixing now
| avgDev wrote:
| Suggest a chart doesn't allow for selection of other countries
| not already present it seems like.
|
| Otherwise, very nice project.
| matteocantiello wrote:
| Thanks! The suggest feature should allow to add lists for new
| countries (just need to change the type):
| https://88mph.fm/suggest Let me know if it doesn't work for you
| avgDev wrote:
| Ah it does! My attention span has been ruined.
| primaprashant wrote:
| 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
| matteocantiello wrote:
| Thanks for the feedback! Yes, there are still some inaccuracies
| that I am fixing manually. I implemented a suggest feature so
| that I can get some external help to expand and polish:
| https://88mph.fm/suggest
| TrackerFF wrote:
| 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.
| matteocantiello wrote:
| You are 100% right. I started with the 5 year interval for
| simplicity, and then I noticed what you pointed out for the
| exact same reason (I grew up with Grunge so this was very
| obvious to me as well). I started adding more granularity, so
| e.g. USA now has the full 2010-2025 charts set. My hope is to
| populate the whole map with higher temporal density moving
| forward (the https://88mph.fm/suggest feature is there for that
| reason too). Will probably have to think of a slightly
| different UI for the time selector, which is a fun challenge
| calebelac wrote:
| 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!
| user_7832 wrote:
| 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.
| matteocantiello wrote:
| Thanks! Data sources are shown here:
| https://github.com/matteocantiello/88mph I agree it would be
| cool to not just expose the top singles of the year, but
| potentially choose the top songs in a different genre, so that
| pop isn't dominating. So maybe having the option to choose
| musical genre first (e.g. Metal, and the whole website's look
| changes to a dark-gothic UI :) and then navigate the charts of
| top metal hits for each country. Which reminds me I need to add
| Finland
| user_7832 wrote:
| Thanks! I looked at a random 2005 chart.
|
| Question, is this data generated by spotify itself, or are
| you using some other chart-tracking tool?
| matteocantiello wrote:
| Nope. I am scraping a number of different sources, mostly
| un-related to spotify. See
| https://github.com/matteocantiello/88mph?tab=readme-ov-
| file#...
| user_7832 wrote:
| Ah thanks, my bad. Looks like the data's from wikipedia
| for my country then. Off to wiki! Thanks again!
| DonsDiscountGas wrote:
| 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
| matteocantiello wrote:
| lol
| FuriouslyAdrift wrote:
| This has a lot of overlap with Radiooooo
|
| https://app.radiooooo.com/
| matteocantiello wrote:
| Similar idea. This is less of a radio, free and open-source :)
| https://github.com/matteocantiello/88mph
| Imustaskforhelp wrote:
| Proud to be the second person to star this project. This is
| really great project :)
| 4ggr0 wrote:
| added a whole new country, curious if my stuff will be added...
|
| nice project :D
| matteocantiello wrote:
| Thanks! Switzerland is now up and running e.g.
| https://88mph.fm/ch/2000
| etrvic wrote:
| 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.
| matteocantiello wrote:
| Yeah, I think the matching algorithm is struggling with some
| non-english speaking countries. I'll have to manually check. If
| you have the time and want to open an issue here's the link
| (but no pressure, this is already helpful)
| https://88mph.fm/suggest
| flashno wrote:
| This is amazing! One of the coolest projects I've seen on here
| tbh
| tamimio wrote:
| 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.
| Giorgi wrote:
| Certified AI slope
| jimbobthemighty wrote:
| Impressed - good job etc
| Imustaskforhelp wrote:
| I listened to my country's old music (India) and although some
| dates are missing. Overall, really impressive.
|
| The thing that I find amazing is that I have listened to songs
| from 1950 from the "mera joota hai japaani" to quite some old
| songs. There were only a few songs that I hadn't heard in total.
| (I have heard the movie awaara from which the song is, had gotten
| quite famous in Russia during that time too)
|
| Lata Mangeshkar truly dominated the Indian records. She was truly
| an Nightingale of India (Rest in peace)
|
| It was from the 1995 -> 2000/2005 shift that I found Indian music
| to have this feeling of "old" to "new", is this even an Indian
| specific effect or all across the world?
|
| I feel like the reasons I know the retro songs are because for
| example the 1950's song is so iconic that nearly 70-75 years
| later, we are comfortable singing it. I think that also is
| because of India's Independence being in 1947 and the song being
| a patriotic song (essentially meaning that no matter what
| nation's clothes I wear, I will always be an Hindustani)
|
| 1995's Tujhe Dekha toh ye jaana sanam and DDLJ and Jaa Simran Jaa
| is like SRK's magnus opus that the actor is defined by this era.
|
| I think that the one of the reasons that new gen knows about
| these songs is also because our parents listen to these songs and
| jukeboxes within the house and my father had the habit of tuning
| into 92.7 when I had to go to school and they always had retro
| songs. Although we only listened for 5 minutes but I definitely
| remember some songs that I heard on the radio (Gulaabi Aakhein)
|
| It also solved one of the mysteries I had on what song is used by
| the popcorn makers who come near homes, they are/were so catchy.
| I used to think it was the song "twisted"[0] but that movie came
| out sort of recent and I couldn't understand but it was with this
| app that I found that twisted song was a remix of the 1955's
| third most famous song by lata mangeshkar (mann dole mera tann
| dole) from the iconic movie naagin.
|
| It truly feels like music sums up some aspects of my country and
| usually the music which gets famous is because the movie becomes
| generational too that its quote can be referenced even till
| today. I can only imagine the same for some other countries as
| well.
|
| It makes me wish to listen to other countries musics to learn
| about their culture.
|
| Joota hai japani/writing this comment made me remember of an
| experience from my life. There is another song from the same
| movie "awara" known as "Kisi ki muskarahoton par ho nisar" and I
| was once very ill and y'know how you feel really sad when you're
| ill or something, I then remember listening to this song and I am
| not sure but that day I ate some biscuit Krack jack and I really
| felt happy/better so that had the effect of me preferring those
| biscuits a lot too. I still eat those biscuits sometimes and
| listen to this song.
|
| It also reminds me of, I had a music teacher in my school, Prem
| sir [Prem meaning love], and being honest I have never seen a
| teacher this patient with kids. He would play songs and we would
| try to guess. He used to tell us stories about him playing flutes
| near his house iirc and I still remember him singing "Achutam
| Keshavam Krishna Damodaram" song in his voice. He was one of the
| best teachers I had. His passion in music was seen by his
| patience and how he treated us nicely even if we are shouting as
| kids and making ruckus, he would then sometimes sing the tunes of
| song and then have us guess it and the whole class would be pin
| drop silent except his music and he is an expert of many music
| instruments. He is such a kind and patient soul. He used to sing
| these retro songs and the music teachers in our school so that
| was another source of influence of retro songs even though the
| gap between my generation and songs are large, but its the
| teachers and everyone who introduced us.
|
| Thank you for making this app kind stranger. I hope many others
| feel the same way about some sense of nostalgia/remembering past
| events like I did with your application.
| matteocantiello wrote:
| This message made my day. Thanks so much for sharing! Funny
| enough, part of the inspiration for this project came from a
| trip to India I took just a couple of months ago. Love your
| country and its music
| Imustaskforhelp wrote:
| > Funny enough, part of the inspiration for this project came
| from a trip to India I took just a couple of months ago. Love
| your country and its music
|
| Your welcome! That's great to hear that my culture/heritage
| and my nation left a positive impact on ya. I really
| appreciate your comment and your application. Wishing you
| many good wishes for your future from my side. Enjoy having a
| nice day!
| piebro wrote:
| If people are interesting exploring artists from different
| countries, I built a tool a few month ago that uses wikidata und
| simple sql queries to get for example a random female artist from
| Germany: https://piebro.github.io/wikidata-extraction/random.html
| airstrike wrote:
| Hah, this is interesting. I just posted something in a similar
| vein!
|
| It's more US-centric, but a bit more granular across time I
| suppose https://anthrology.site
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(page generated 2026-03-13 23:01 UTC)