19 Oldies Young People Love
The first in a series on the most-played Classics on Spotify during 2024-2025
When Bill Withers’ and Grover Washington Jr.’s “Just the Two Of Us” came on the radio, my teenager proclaimed, “Oh, I love this song!”
I asked, “how do you even know this song?”
This staple of soft rock radio from my youth predated my kid’s birth by 28 years. For me, that would have been like digging a song as a teenager from 1946 from The Ink Spots or Nat King Cole. (Well, actually, I would have done that as a teen, but I was never normal.)
“Dad, it’s a classic!”
In 2024, dozens of older songs competed with the biggest contemporary hits as the most-played songs on Spotify in the U.S., a significant increase from previous years That includes Oldies from the 60s, 70s, and 80s
As the leading streaming music service in the U.S., Spotify increasingly attracts users of all ages. However, people under age 35 still comprise 55% of its users. That means when an Oldie becomes one of the most-streamed songs on Spotify, it isn’t just Boomers or Xers streaming the song: It’s doing so with significant fandom from Millennials and Generation Z.
And what Oldies are those young folks playing when they’re in control of their music?
I examined the weekly Spotify 200 charts in the U.S. from January 2024 through February 2025 to find out. Here are the classics that Spotify users played the most alongside Taylor Swift, Sabrina Carpenter, Chappell Roan, and Kendrick Lamar.
Note that the graphs below, which each songs stream count by week, only register a song during weeks it qualified for the Spotify 200 chart. The orange line shows the cutoff for the Spotify 200. Fans undoubtedly were still playing these songs on other weeks, but it ranked #201 or below during weeks with no streams.
Let’s explore those 19 Oldies, which fall into three categories:
#1: Oldies that were already big before 2024
Unlike all the other songs on this list, young listeners originally embraced Fleetwood Mac “Dreams” as if it were a brand new song when that TikTok introduced them to it. At its peak in late 2020, it was the #6 most-played song on Spotify.
Unlike other Oldies that young people discovered on Tik Tok, however, fans keep on playing “Dreams” week after week.
Journey’s “Don't Stop Believin’” was a revived classic before the streaming era. In the middle of the iTunes era, Glee tapped into that energy featuring the song for multiple episodes from 2010 through 2013.
Like other Classic Hits, Journey’s ode to Windsor, Ontario, continues to garner the most plays during the Summer months.
Tear for Fears’ “Everybody Wants To Rule The World” first broke into the Spotify 200 in 2022. Outside of the Christmas season—which pushes many titles out of the top 200 songs—it’s pretty mush stayed there through this past summer.
While it slipped below the threshold for the Spotify 200 last August, it’s returned in October and this past January.
#2: Oldies that broke through in 2024
Millennials and Gen Z didn’t read Generation X’s memo from 1985 that Hall & Oates can’t be cool. That old bias was already gone when Live from Daryl's House debuted as a web-based show in 2007. Continued TV and public appearances with younger acts reintroduced them to older and younger fans alike.
Daryl Hall & John Oates “Rich Girl” only began appearing regularly in the U.S. Spotify 200 in March 2024, with steams peaking the week of the 4th of July.
That’s a trend you’ll see again with these songs.
The other song from the Philadelphia duo debuting in the Spotify 200 in 2024 was actually bigger than “Rich Girl” during the spring, but dropped off the Spotify 200 –for now –by early august; Daryl Hall & John Oates’ “You Make My Dreams (Come True)”
Van Morrison’s “Brown Eyed Girl” never really went away. It remained a staple of Oldies radio for decades. Then, as other 1960s classics gave way on FM radio to—[Gen X sigh]—80s Oldies, “Brown Eyed Girl” was often among the handful of 60s classics that today’s “Classic Hits” stations will still play.
Like other Feel Good Favorites®folks play most during the summer, Van’s ode to making love in the green grass first began appearing in the Spotify 200 in March 2024, peaked in July, and fell out of the Spotify 200 for the year after October.
The trend you’re noticing that fun, upbeat classics perform best during the Summer is indeed a thing. Consider AC/DC’s “You Shook Me All Night Long”…
or, Billy Joel’s “Uptown Girl” …
or “Listen To The Music” from the pre-Yacht Rock Doobie Brothers…
or Otis Redding’s “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay”, a slow song with a sobering social message veiled within it’s breezy theme:
When examining all the Oldies that made the Spotify 200 from January 2024 through February 2025, it’s clear Spotify users play the classics of the 60s, 70s, and 80s most during the summer.
However, there are Oldies that emerged on the Spotify 200 in 2024 that are not linked to summer.
#3: Oldies that aren’t just for summer
Consider Creedence Clearwater Revival. “Fortunate Son” does get played a lot on July 4th—including during 2023:
But the revival of Creedence began in early 2024:
That’s also true for Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Have You Ever Seen The Rain.”
Speaking of rain, was there some weather thing happening in April 2024, or did young fans simply rediscover Bill Withers’ “Ain’t No Sunshine” suddenly?
Wanna guess when folks play Earth Wind & Fire’s “September” most?
Starting in 2024, Spotify users also played “September” throughout the summer alongside other feel good favorites whose streaming peaks during June, July and August.
Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell’s “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” also gets played in September and peaked in January 2024.
For some reason, fans stream Buffalo Springfield’s reflective “For What It’s Worth” most in August.
Some songs break into the Spotify 200 for logical reasons, such as Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car” after she performed with Luke Combs at the Grammy Awards.
Other songs, meanwhile, break through into the Spotify 200 for reasons unbeknownst to me, such as Crowded House’s “Don’t Dream It’s Over”…
or Bob Marley and the Whalers’ “Could You Be Loved.”
What didn’t make the cut?
There were a few other classic hits that made the Spotify 200 during this period that simply didn’t chart consistently enough to make my list, including “Your Love,” The Outfield’s 1986 ode to a douchey booty call, A-Ha’s “Take On Me,” from 1985, the most aggressively argued one-hit wonder in the U.S. among chart nerds, and Milli Vanilli’s “Blame It On The Rain,” from 1989, featuring Frank Farian’s advice to abscond personal responsibility. Oh the irony.
Three Oldies that no longer make the cut
In a June 2024 post, I spotlighted the classics Spotify users played most during 2019 through 2023. A few of those titles are notoriously absent from 2024-2025’s list:
Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” saw its second revival thanks to a film in 2019, specifically the Freddie Mercury biopic of the same name. While Gen Z kids still love it, it hasn’t done the fandango enough to reach the Spotify 200 since then.
Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill” was a revival for musically adventurous Gen Xers, but for Generation Z fans who discovered it on Stranger Things, it was a 2022 song. Like most other contemporary hits, “Running Up That Hill” peaked early (at #1 no less), but fell out of the Spotify 200 after less than a year.
Finally, my fellow Oldies fanatics were delighted when Edison Lighthouse’s “Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes)" had a brief moment on TikTok as an ode to unkempt women. Like most TikTok songs for Generation Z, however, it was a short-lived meme, not a discovered new favorite. It was only on the Spotify 200 for a few weeks in 2022 and never returned.
What about the 90s?
The small number of 1990s titles that emerged among the Spotify 200 from January 2024 through February 2025 were all Alternative songs. We’ll be diving into the most played Alternative Classics on Spotify in our next post.
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Date source for this post:
Spotify Charts (weeks of 1/3/2019 through 2/28/2025 for the USA): https://charts.spotify.com/charts/overview/us