Music

Why We All Love Good 4 U So Much – Nostalgia is Back with A Bang

15/06/2021

“Well, good for you, you look happy and healthy…” are 9 words that will resonate strongly with many of us but, Tik-Tok users more than most.

The Olivia Rodrigo hit “Good 4 U” has boomed in popularity since its release on May 14^th – the song has more than 253 million listens on Spotify and a respective 1.3 billion views associated with the hashtag on TikTok.

While it has had so many of us bopping along – a few fans have noticed an incredible similarity to Paramore’s Misery Business.

Fan’s recognitions make complete sense too – there’s no denying we love this song because we love nostalgia. The last year has been filled with it. When we’re stuck at home during lockdown, we think of better, happier times and remember fond memories. Nostalgia has been spilling over into many different areas of our lives, from our clothes to our Instagram feeds.

GlobalWebIndex research found that we’re more optimistic when we’re nostalgic. Eight in 10 people answered that they feel nostalgic occasionally, and four in 10 said they do so regularly.

This undeniable nostalgia megatrend hasn’t gone unnoticed – even social media sites are getting involved in reminding us of happy times. Although it can be frustrating to remember all the nights out with friends and holidays we’re missing out on, we just can’t help but reminisce about the past.

In this article, we take a look at phenomenon.

Music is the answer

Let’s start with music. Looking back to the GlobalWebIndex research mentioned earlier, results found that music is one of the biggest triggers of nostalgia. When different age groups were asked what they missed the most, music was the most common answer. It seems that a song we love has the ability to transport us back to a memory. Because of this, people have been turning to Spotify to get that nostalgia fix.

The ever-loved music provider Spotify has delivered us Spotify Wrapped in recent years – a feature that gives users insight into their 50 top songs of the last year – the ones they listened to the most, top artists, genres, and many more. For those wanting to delve back deeper, Spotify Time Capsule lets you listen to your top songs of a particular year, allowing you to enjoy all the songs of a certain time.

Unsurprisingly, these nostalgic features were a massive hit and were posted across users’ social media feeds to show their friends their findings. In 2020, Spotify’s mobile app downloads surged by 21 per cent in the first week of December due to the feature.

You’ll also be glad to know that Spotify have also just launched their ‘Only You’ feature, leaning on the success of the aforementioned Wrapped campaign – definitely worth your attention!

Nostalgia marketing megatrend

Alongside being fun and slightly heart-wrenching, social media has been getting involved with ‘nostalgia marketing’ which we’re expecting to see continuing into 2021. In simple terms, nostalgia marketing is when brands introduce logos, colours, and themes from their previous branding to help remind us of “the good old days”.

Cast your mind back to October 2020 and you might remember when Instagram allowed users to revert to old app logos for one month only, including the classic 2010 logo that users were devastated to see decommissioned.

Visual remembrance

It isn’t just audio that gets our senses reminiscing – sight can be incredibly nostalgic too. Memories on Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, and Timehop are all brilliant examples of social media features that give us an insight into what we were posting on that exact day each year in the past. Over lockdown, it has been interesting to see how much our lives changed, and it gets us excited to return back to normal. We can see videos, pictures, and posts from years ago – things we would probably have little recognition of. And now that more and more of us are sharing things online, there are only going to be more memories to look back on.

Now you’ve started thinking about those summers back in 2007 when you were rocking out to pop-punk or dreaming about the weather and that fantastic outfit you once wore, why not dig out those mule sandals ready for a summer to remember!

So, there you have it – we love nostalgia and there’s nothing we can do about it!