History Main / NothingButHits

If your show is set after 1930, then at some point a radio will be heard. It will only be playing well-known songs that, with hindsight, are seen as the coolest or most iconic of their era. Never any of the novelty singles, {{One-Hit Wonder}}s or any form of teen pop that would have been on genuine radio stations of the period. If a movie marquee is seen, it will be showing a well-known classic of the period. Newspaper headlines will be the stories that everyone remembers, and televisions will always be showing either a famous opening sequence (''Series/{{MASH}}'', ''Series/TheMaryTylerMooreShow'', etc.) or a famous scene (such as the chocolate factory scene from ''Series/ILoveLucy'').

If your show is set after 1930, then at some point a radio will be heard. It will only be playing well-known songs that, with hindsight, are seen as the coolest or most iconic of their era. Never any of the novelty singles, one-hit wonders or any form of teen pop that would have been on genuine radio stations of the period. If a movie marquee is seen, it will be showing a well-known classic of the period. Newspaper headlines will be the stories that everyone remembers, and televisions will always be showing either a famous opening sequence (''Series/{{MASH}}'', ''Series/TheMaryTylerMooreShow'', etc.) or a famous scene (such as the chocolate factory scene from ''Series/ILoveLucy'').

** Jonathan Byers is established as the 80s version of a music hipster by listening to, and name checking, Music/TheSmiths, Music/TheClash and Music/EchoAndTheBunnymen among others. It stretches plausibility that a high schooler in a small town in Indiana, before the internet, would have even heard of these bands at the time. If Hawkins were located on the Ohio border near Cincinnati, Jonathan could have heard those bands on the pioneering and influential modern rock station [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WOXY.com WOXY-FM]], but Hawkins' exact location in Indiana have never been confirmed. Indiana itself didn't get its [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WOLT first modern rock station]] until 1992.

* Averted in the first episode of ''Series/StrangerThings'' where Benny the diner owner is playing ''Music/JeffersonAirplane,'' but ''not'' "White Rabbit" or "Somebody To Love" as one might expect, but the less well-known "She Has Funny Cars" from the same album.
** Jonathan Byers is established as the 80s version of a music hipster by listening to, and name checking, ''Music/TheSmiths'', ''Music/TheClash'' and ''Music/EchoAndTheBunnymen'' among others. It stretches plausibility that a high schooler in a small town in Indiana, before the internet, would have even heard of these bands at the time.

** Of course, Rapture was an underwater city that had existed in secret since the late 1940s. It's justified that there wouldn't be any contemporary music in a city that had lived cut off from the rest of the world for years.

* Averted in the first episode of ''Series/StrangerThings'' where Benny the diner owner is playing ''Music/JeffesonAirplane,'' but ''not'' "White Rabbit" or "Somebody To Love" as one might expect, but the less well-known "She Has Funny Cars" from the same album.

Of course, the above doesn't apply just to period pieces. Vintage films set in their contemporaneous times (''especially'' if they're from TheEighties or later) will more often than not have a soundtrack consisting of current pop songs for the tie-in merchandising, and in hindsight they will themselves come off as this trope. (Consider the embarrassing VHS description for the 1984 musical ''Film/PurpleRain'', which was ''not'' updated for the DVD rerelease more than a decade later: "...a now soundtrack by the hottest bands around!") [[note]] and, ironically, except for Prince and the Revolution themselves, features bands that are now very obscure and forgotten by everyone but '80s pop-music buffs [[/note]]

** Except for the times when it's in-universe in ''Remember The Titans'', such as when the team sings "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" or "Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye"
** ''Remember the Titans'' also plays with this trope. When things look bad for the Titans, the film's original score is used. When things begin to look better, then they start to use late 60s/early 70s classic rock.
* In ''Film/{{Apollo 13}}'' the teenage daughter's radio was playing during almost every scene they showed Lovell's family, clearly to sell yet another late 60s/early 70s classic rock movie soundtrack.
* Many movies set in the very early 90's will include ''Fight The Power'' by Music/PublicEnemy. ''Film/DoTheRightThing'' (1989), ''Film/BuffaloSoldiers'', ''Film/{{Jarhead}}'' and ''Film/ThreeKings'' all used it.
* One of the cuts David Fincher made to ''Film/{{Zodiac}}'' before it hit theaters was a blank-screen audio montage that denoted the passage of time between 1973-1977 with a "nothing but hits" soundtrack spanning the era, though it does not appear in the final version. The Director's Cut restores this, utilizing well-known songs by Roberta Flack, Wild Cherry, Bachman Turner Overdrive and other ubiquitous hits.

* Played straight [[http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0352520/goofs several times]] in ''The Life and Death of Creator/PeterSellers'', namely the sequences set in the 1960s and '70s...as noted at the link, they are anachronisms in relation to the events depicted. One not mentioned anymore at [=IMDb=] is the use of The Clash's "Should I Stay or Should I Go", from 1982, in a scene that cannot be set any later than early Janurary 1979 because Peter is preparing to film ''Film/BeingThere''. (Not to mention Peter ''died'' in 1980.)
* ''Film/DazedAndConfused''. Most of the tracks featured in the music-heavy film are fairly iconic of 70s rock and well-known today.

** A non-musical one: in the [[Film/BackToTheFuture first film]], Marty spends his first night in 1955 with his mother's family, watching an episode of ''Series/TheHoneymooners''. Of course, one reason why ''The Honeymooners'' only lasted 39 episodes as a standalone sitcom is that in the fall and winter of 1955-56 it regularly got trounced in the ratings by ''The Perry Como Show'' in the same Saturday night time slot.
** [[InvokedTrope Invoked]] by the Cafe 80s store Marty enters in ''Film/BackToTheFuturePartII'', as the cafe is deliberately going for the 80s throwback aesthetic and as such has [[Music/MichaelJackson "Beat It"]] playing when he walks in.
** An inversion occurs in one of the opening scenes of ''Film/BackToTheFuturePartIII'', Marty comes out of the restroom at a drive-in theater dressed like a cheesy 1950s cowboy. He comments that he doesn't think Clint Eastwood would ever wear such a thing, and Clint Eastwood is the name he chooses to go by for the rest of the movie. When he says this, he gestures to the movie posters showcasing what movies are currently showing at the drive-in. The two movies are ''Film/RevengeOfTheCreature'' and ''Film/{{Tarantula}}'', two 50s monster flicks, but also the first two movies Eastwood ever appeared in.
* Played straight in an ironic sort of way in ''Film/{{Pleasantville}}'', where we hear Buddy' Holly's "Rave On" on a jukebox at exactly the time (April 1958) and place (a teen hang-out) that song would have been heard in real life - but probably NOT in Pleasantville, where anything the least bit unorthodox or controversial (which rock and roll certainly was back then) literally didn't exist.
* Subverted in ''Film/DonnieDarko''. It does use some 80s nostalgia tracks like "Head Over Heels" by Tears For Fears but also some more obscurish songs like "The Killing Moon" from Echo & The Bunnymen. Most of what's shown on TV is coverage of the 1988 election and the film shown in the theater is a double bill of The Evil Dead and The Last Temptation of Christ rather than some current film.

* ''Film/TheHouseOfTheDevil'', which isn't set in the early 80's so much as [[{{Retraux}} it is specifically designed to look and feel like it was originally filmed during that period]]. Three 80's singles are listened to by characters. "One Thing Leads To Another" by The Fixx is well-remembered enough to show up on many 80's hits compilations. The other two singles, "One Of Our Submarines" by Thomas Dolby and "The Breakup Song (They Don't Write 'Em)" by The Greg Kihn Band, on the other hand, are a bit more obscure.
* ''Film/TheWood'' has 80's rap and R&B hits during the flashbacks to 1986.

* ''Film/GuardiansOfTheGalaxy'' has main character Peter Quill listen to the Awesome Mix Vol. 1, a mixtape of his mother's favorite songs from the 70s. Because it's a greatest hits mixtape, of course, it plays this trope hard, with songs such as "Escape (The Pina Colada Song)", "Ain't No Mountain High Enough", "I Want You Back", and "Spirit in the Sky". (There are, of course, lesser known songs like "Hooked on a Feeling", "Ooh Child", and "Come and Get Your Love".) [[Film/GuardiansOfTheGalaxyVol2 The sequel]] averts this trope a little harder.
* ''Literature/{{Christine}}'' uses this as a sign that there's something wrong with the car in question. Even set in the mid-80s, the red Plymouth Fury plays music straight from the 50s.

* The NBC miniseries ''The 60's'' and it's sequel ''The 70's'' are this trope.
* Nearly everyone in ''Series/{{Life On Mars|2006}}'' listens to The Who, Led Zeppelin, Cream, Lou Reed and Santana, well-remembered bands of the 70s. (One key exception being Gene Hunt, who hates rock music but will [[GuiltyPleasure quietly admit to liking Roger Whittaker.]][[note]]The episode in question, which had hitherto played the trope straight in featuring the likes of T. Rex and Slade, plays out to one of Roger Whittaker's songs.[[/note]])
* ''Series/ColdCase'''s [[FlashBack flashbacks]] use only well-remembered hits to help define the feeling of the historical period. With period settings, this can skew toward the anachronistic, since they once used Glenn Miller's "String of Pearls", which Jerry Gray, its composer, did not even write until 1941, in an episode centered around the 1938 broadcast of ''The War of the Worlds''

** In "Father's Day", Pete's car radio plays several hits of the late 80s, [[HilariousInHindsight including]] "[[JustForFun/{{Rickroll}} Never Gonna Give You Up]]".
* ''Series/AmericanDreams'' used this motif while actually playing the songs live as they happened on ''Series/AmericanBandstand'', with {{Guest Star}}s as the singers of the day. (Of course, a few of the songs were never played on ''Bandstand''). The show was notorious for its musical anachronisms. The very first scene in the entire series features Stevie Wonder's "Uptight (Everything's Alright)" playing while the caption reads, "Philadelphia, 1963"...not only three years before the song we're hearing was recorded, but arguably the biggest three-year gap of the rock era in terms of how music changed.
* The 2002 adaptation of ''Literature/WhiteTeeth'' uses a number of hit songs contemporary to the setting of each episode (1974 - 1992); mainly non-diagetically for dialogue-free scenes, and in the opening titles and end credits.
* ''Series/EverybodyHatesChris'' epitomizes this trope, it takes place in the 80s(1982-1987 to be precise) and almost every single popular 80s song you can think of is heard at some point.

* ''VideoGame/{{BioShock|1}}'' used a lot of famous music that people are likely to recognize as being from the 40's and 50's -- the game itself takes place in 1960. A lot of the songs ''were'' hits, like ''Papa Loves Mambo'' and ''La Mer''.

* The ''VideoGame/{{Fallout}}'' series is set in an alternate universe post-apocalyptic 1950s with many references to 50s culture, including a collection of period appropriate songs, most prominently featured in ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 3}}'' where the player can tune into Three Dog's radio show for some easy listening while wandering the Capital Wasteland.
* ''VideoGame/MafiaIII'' nicely subverts this. Lots of iconic songs from the late 60s appear, however there are plenty of more obscure ones and songs that were popular at the time but largely forgotten. Many songs from earlier in the decade and the 50s also appear. Overall the radio stations provide a pretty believable experience.

* ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolidVThePhantomPain'' uses this heavily, being set in 1984 and having radios set around guard posts playing mostly hits from the 80's that still haven't aged and inexplicably on the hands of Soviet troops.

* Nearly everyone in ''Series/{{Life On Mars|2006}}'' listens to The Who, Led Zeppelin, Cream, Lou Reed and Santana, well-remembered bands of the 70s. (One key exception being Gene Hunt, who hates rock music but will [[GuiltyPleasure secretly admit to liking Roger Whittaker.]][[note]]The episode in question, which had hitherto played the trope straight in featuring the likes of T. Rex and Slade, plays out to one of Roger Whittaker's songs.[[/note]])

* Nearly everyone in ''Series/{{Life On Mars|2006}}'' listens to The Who, Led Zeppelin, Cream, Lou Reed and Santana, well-remembered bands of the 70s. Am ajor exception being Gene Hunt, who hates rock music but will [[GuiltyPleasure secretly admit to liking Roger Whittaker.]][[note]]The episode in question, which had hitherto played the trope straight in featuring the likes of T. Rex and Slade, plays out to one of Roger Whittaker's songs.[[/note]]

* Nearly everyone in ''Series/{{Life On Mars|2006}}'' listens to The Who, Led Zeppelin, Cream, Lou Reed and Santana, well-remembered bands of the 70s.

** In "Father's Day", Pete's car radio plays several hits of the late 80s, [[HilariousInHindsight including]] "[[{{Rickroll}} Never Gonna Give You Up]]".

* ''Literature/Christine'' uses this as a sign that there's something wrong with the car in question. Even set in the mid-80s, the red Plymouth Fury plays music straight from the 50s.

* ''Film/Christine'' uses this as a sign that there's something wrong with the car in question. Even set in the mid-80s, the red Plymouth Fury plays music straight from the 50s.

In addition to giving a clear indication as to the time period of a scene, this allows the audience to only be exposed to elements of pop culture that have aged relatively well. If even the most iconic songs of a decade often seem rather dated and silly nowadays -- due to changing tastes, ValuesDissonance, etc. -- then the throwaway hits of a given summer that were promptly forgotten would be rather painful for a modern audience to experience. Unless they are [[StylisticSuck deliberately picked]] from the worst of the worst. Oldies radio stations in the real world do the same thing: What you loved when you were 15 is different from what you want to hear on an oldies station when you are 40. To use one common example: many a "love" song written from a male perspective prior to TheNineties now comes across as stalker-ish, if not outright sexist or misogynistic, in its attitude toward women when heard with modern ears.

* Plenty of familiar hits like "Rock Around the Clock" and "Johnny B. Goode" can be heard in ''Film/AmericanGraffiti'', though there are also relatively (now) obscure rock and R&B singles as the Five Satins' "To the Aisle" and the Heartbeats' "A Thousand Miles Away". (Granted, that film ''was'' only a decade removed from the period it depicted...)

* ''Film/TheBigChill'' and it's use of Motown Records to the point of making oldies cool again.

In addition to giving a clear indication as to the time period of a scene, this allows the audience to only be exposed to elements of pop culture that have aged relatively well. If even the most iconic songs of a decade often seem rather dated and silly nowadays, the throwaway hits of a given summer that were promptly forgotten would be rather painful for the modern audience to experience. Unless they are [[StylisticSuck deliberately picked]] from the worst of the worst. Oldies radio stations in the real world do the same thing: What you loved when you were 15 is different from what you want to hear on an oldies station when you are 40. To use one common example: many a "love" song written from a male perspective prior to TheNineties now comes across as stalker-ish, if not outright sexist or misogynistic, in its attitude toward women when heard with modern ears.

In addition to giving a clear indication as to the time period of a scene, this allows the audience to only be exposed to elements of pop culture that have aged relatively well. If even the most iconic songs of a decade often seem rather dated and silly nowadays, the throwaway hits of a given summer that were promptly forgotten would be rather painful for the modern audience to experience. Unless they are [[StylisticSuck deliberately picked]] from the worst of the worst. Oldies radio stations in the real world do the same thing: What you loved when you were 15 is different from what you want to hear on an oldies station when you are 40. To use an example: many a "love" song written from a male perspective prior to TheNineties now comes across as stalker-ish, if not outright sexist or misogynistic, in its attitude toward women when heard with modern ears.

In addition to giving a clear indication as to the time period of a scene, this allows the audience to only be exposed to elements of pop culture that have aged relatively well. If even the most iconic songs of a decade often seem rather dated and silly nowadays, the throwaway hits of a given summer that were promptly forgotten would be rather painful for the modern audience to experience. Unless they are [[StylisticSuck deliberately picked]] from the worst of the worst. Oldies radio stations in the real world do the same thing: What you loved when you were 15 is different from what you want to hear on an oldies station when you are forty. To use an example: many a "love" song written from a male perspective prior to TheNineties now comes across as stalker-ish, if not outright sexist or misogynistic, in its attitude toward women when heard with modern ears.

* Oldies, classic hits, and {{classic rock}} stations generally play this straight as well, airing only the biggest and most durable hit singles from the nostalgic eras they cover. You may hear the occasional "deep" album cut on rock-oriented stations, however.

* ''TheBigChill'' and it's use of Motown Records to the point of making oldies cool again.

* ''Videogame/GrandTheftAuto'' also subverts this, although in occasion they did play it straight in ''Videogame/GrandTheftAutoIII'' for one of the radio station exclusively plays tracks from ''Film/{{Scarface}}'' OST.

* ''VideoGame/Mafia3'' nicely subverts this. Lots of iconic songs from the late 60s appear, however there are plenty of more obscure ones and songs that were popular at the time but largely forgotten. Many songs from earlier in the decade and the 50s also appear. Overall the radio stations provide a pretty believable experience.
* ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolidVThePhantomPain'' uses this heavily, being set in 1984 and having radios set around settlements playing mostly hits from the 80's that still haven't aged.

** [[InvokedTrope Invoked]] by the Cafe 80s store Marty enters in ''BackToTheFuturePartII'', as the cafe is deliberately going for the 80s throwback aesthetic and as such has [[Music/MichaelJackson "Beat It"]] playing when he walks in.

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* ''ComicBook/TheTwelve'' has twelve UsefulNotes/WorldWarII characters waking up on the 21st century. They're put in a fake '40s hospital to avoid culture shock during their recovery, complete with a radio playing '40s hits. The first suspicion that something is wrong comes when one of them notices the radio is not playing ''commercials''.

* A somewhat odd example happens in ''Film/TheWackness'' and ''Hardball'' (that Keanu Reeves baseball flick) Where Music/TheNotoriousBIG is constantly played.

* The NBC miniseries ''The 60's'' and it's sequel ''The 70's'' are this trope

** Averted in one episode where plot-related and heard in-universe song was composed specially for show.