Flight #Popplegangers

Popplegangers is an upbeat playlist of similar-sounding songs grouped in pairs. The first song in each pair is the older, by an average of 27 years, sort of like the parent to the second. Hearing the family resemblance might be a neat way to practice ‘mindfulness.’ If you pay attention, it’s definitely there, a window into a different way of experiencing the world and your lifetime in it.

To experience as intended, please refrain from shuffling. Enjoy your flight.

Flight time: 1 hr • 16 songs

on Apple Music

on Tidal

on Spotify

on YouTube

Flight Path with year, and the number of years between songs

1987 I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Whitney Houston)

28 yrs – The biggest musical motif in these songs are the double synth stabs in the choruses; they start on the downbeat and are timed almost identically in both songs. Except on the Derulo track, they’re slightly early, making them feel edgier. It’s a change measured in milliseconds that took 28 years.

2015 Want To Want Me (Jason Derulo)

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1979 Message In A Bottle (The Police)

34 yrs – Urgent tempo, minor chords, the shifts in energy in the song sections: the same foundations that built another hit 34 years later.

2013 Locked Out Of Heaven (Bruno Mars)

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1990 Vogue (Madonna)

21 yrs – Spoken word in dance songs exhorting you to Express Yourself, the other Madonna tune that sounds similar.

2011 Born This Way (Lady Gaga)

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1972 Listen To The Music (Doobie Brothers)

22 yrs - Southern rock grooves on the same basic acoustic rhythm guitar strum pattern.

1994 Only Wanna Be With You (Hootie & The Blowfish)

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1964 The Way You Do The Things You Do (The Temptations)

22 yrs – Cute love songs with the exact same cute rhythm and tempo.

1986 Stuck With You (Huey Lewis & The News)

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1959 Baby Let’s Play House

28 yrs – Bouncy rockabilly, with electric guitars on the blues scale.

1987 Faith (George Michael)

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1946 Salt Pork, West Virginia (Louis Jordan & His Tympany Five)

39 yrs – Songs about places on the map, featuring energetic horns and shouting out a bunch of city names.

1985 Living In America (James Brown)

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1938 New San Antonio Rose (Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys)

25 yrs – Country love songs featuring Mariachi style horns.

1963 Ring of Fire (Johnny Cash)