Show HN: What was the world listening to? Music charts, 20 countries (1940–2025) (88mph.fm)

by matteocantiello 51 comments 114 points
Read article View on HN

51 comments

[−] dewey 64d ago
Other fun site in that niche (Since 2013), you can select the country + year and just "tune in": https://app.radiooooo.com/
[−] ProllyInfamous 63d ago
Was really excited until I saw the required sign-up... neat 1920s demo, though.

Best alternative is only by region (LIVE): <https://radio.garden/>

[−] dewey 63d ago
It's a very old site and that came recently, same with the optional premium account. Makes sense to me as it's a small project and they actually legally license the music.
[−] TrackerFF 64d ago
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 64d ago
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
[−] pilaf 64d ago
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

[−] matteocantiello 64d ago
Thanks for catching this! Fixing now
[−] poisonarena 64d ago
the israeli one has a lot of wrong data as well, "2005 year end top 10" all came out in late 90s-2002
[−] matteocantiello 63d ago
Thanks for catching that. It will be fixed over the weekend
[−] FuriouslyAdrift 64d ago
This has a lot of overlap with Radiooooo

https://app.radiooooo.com/

[−] matteocantiello 64d ago
Similar idea. This is less of a radio, free and open-source :) https://github.com/matteocantiello/88mph
[−] Imustaskforhelp 64d ago
Proud to be the second person to star this project. This is really great project :)
[−] DonsDiscountGas 64d ago
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 64d ago
lol
[−] primaprashant 64d ago
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 64d ago
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
[−] chickensong 64d ago
I found two obvious issues in the first playlist I tried, and used /suggest, but two out of ten doesn't inspire confidence. Maybe in addition to /suggest, extend your app to include a checker on the compiled playlist. The two songs I noticed, one was released over 30 years later, the other wasn't even from the same century and was an unrelated genre. Just comparing song release date against the playlist year would easily have caught these.
[−] user_7832 64d ago
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.

[−] delibae 63d ago
Love this. Checked the Korea section - happy to help fill in gaps through the suggest feature if needed.
[−] ghssds 64d ago
I tried to look at the charts for Canada. The result may be representative for English Canada but Canada is really two markets. There is English Canada and French Canada, and both listen to very different music, with different charts. Belgium and Switzerland are probably the same.
[−] etrvic 64d ago
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.
[−] airstrike 64d ago
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

[−] rubenflamshep 67d ago
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?

[−] Qc17 64d ago
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