History Main / NothingButHits

* ''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; for example, they once used Music/GlennMiller's "String of Pearls" (which Jerry Gray, its composer, didn't even write until 1941) in an episode centered around the 1938 broadcast of ''Radio/TheWarOfTheWorlds''.

** 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 has never been confirmed. Indiana itself didn't get its [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WOLT first modern rock station]] until 1992. "Should I Stay or Should I Go?" by Music/TheClash, which figures heavily into the plot, was released a year before the events of the show. Averted when Episode 5 ends with "Nocturnal Me" by Echo & the Bunnymen, which is from the same album as the far better known "The Killing Moon."

* ''Series/TheGoldbergs'' ends each episode with a scene set to an 80's hit, sometimes relevant to the plot of the episode.

* 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''.

* ''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.

* ''Videogame/GrandTheftAuto'' also subverts this, with the appearance of hit music usually lower or equal than the obscure and dated music of its appropriate era. They did, however, in occasion play it straight in ''Videogame/GrandTheftAutoIII'' for one of the radio station exclusively plays tracks from ''Film/{{Scarface}}'' OST.

If your show is set anytime after 1930 but prior to the PresentDay, 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 anytime after 1930 but prior to the PresentDay, 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'').

** A few Eighties standards are heard, including "Africa" by Music/{{Toto}}, "Hazy Shade of Winter" by Music/TheBangles, "I Melt with You" by Modern English, "Waiting for a Girl Like You" by Music/{{Foreigner}}, and "Time after Time" by Music/CyndiLauper.

* WesternAnimation/TheAngryBirdsMovie2 features tons of iconic hits, such as "[[Music/{{Survivor}} Eye of The Tiger]]" and "[[Music/{{Europe}} The Final Countdown]]".

* 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 1973–77 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.

* ''Literature/{{Christine}}'' uses this as a sign that there's something wrong with the car in question. Even set in the mid-1980s, the red Plymouth Fury plays music straight from the '50s.

** Season 4 episode "The Hellfire Club" uses "California Dreamin'" for a montage - not the original Music/The MamasAndThePapas version from the 60s most viewers would be familiar with, but a CoverVersion by Music/TheBeachBoys which was a modest hit in 1986 but is now largely forgotten.

* 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. 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 has never been confirmed. Indiana itself didn't get its [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WOLT first modern rock station]] until 1992.

[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]

[[folder: Advertising]]

This is likely to occur in a MisterSandmanSequence, though in that case the song would likely be playing on the film's soundtrack rather than within the scene itself. A sub-trope of SmallReferencePools. Related to NostalgiaFilter and PopularHistory. Can overlap with PoliticallyCorrectHistory if the vintage element being shown is popular ''now'', but was way too ''avant-garde'' or even offensive in its own era for most people to enjoy it.

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]]

** 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 Creator/ClintEastwood would ever wear such a thing, and "Clint Eastwood" is the name he [[ImMrFuturePopCultureReference 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.

** 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.

If your show is set anytime after 1930 and prior to the PresentDay, 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'').

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'').

As a corollary, the radio will almost always be playing ''current'' hits of the period in question, especially if the scene is a flashback set 10 years or more before the main action of the show. How will the audience know the flashback is taking place in 1982 if the people in it are inconsiderate enough to be listening to hits of the '60s or '70s on an oldies station... or, even worse, to the hits [[AnachronismStew of 1987]]?

As a corollary, the radio will almost always be playing ''current'' hits of the period in question, especially if the scene is a flashback set 10 years or more before the main action of the show. How would the audience know the flashback is taking place in 1982 if the people in it are inconsiderate enough to be listening to hits of the '60s or '70s on an oldies station, [[AnachronismStew or of 1987]]?

* ''Series/TheGoldbergs'' ends each episode with a scene set to an 80's hit, sometimes relavant to the plot of the episode.

* 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.

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. After all, 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.

** ''Film/XMenDaysOfFuturePast'': All your favorite tunes from the TheSeventies. The first thing Wolverine hears in 1973 is Roberta Flack's "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face"; Quicksilver listens to Music/AliceCooper's "Hello Hooray" and Music/JimCroce's "Time in a Bottle"; the disco in Paris is playing Claude Francois's French '70s hit "Stop au nom de l'amour."

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 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'').