A few days ago, I was listening to some old songs on YouTube.

I started with one song from 2012, then another from 2010, and somehow ended up listening to music I hadn't heard in over ten years.

You know that feeling when a song comes on and suddenly you remember a completely random moment from your past?

Maybe it's a song you used to play on the way to school. Something you listened to with your friends. Or a song that was everywhere during a particular summer.

For me, that's one of the best things about music. Sometimes you don't even realize how much you miss a certain time in your life until you hear a song from it.

That little trip down memory lane gave me an idea.

What if I could just pick a year and see all the songs that were popular back then?

So I decided to build a small website for it.

Meet UsefulGo Hits

It's called UsefulGo Hits.

The idea is pretty straightforward. You choose a year, and the website shows you some of the biggest songs from that time.

It currently covers music from 2000 to 2026, with over 300 songs to explore.

For example, if you pick 2012, you'll find songs like Gangnam Style and Call Me Maybe.

Go to 2015, and you might remember how often See You Again and Adele's Hello were playing everywhere.

Or go back even further, to the early 2000s, when music sounded completely different.

I find it interesting how quickly you can recognize a song you haven't heard in years. Sometimes I can't remember what I had for lunch yesterday, but somehow I still remember the lyrics to a song from 2008.

Funny how that works.

I wanted to keep it simple

There are already plenty of great music streaming services out there, so I wasn't trying to build another Spotify.

I just wanted something where I could open a page, choose a year, and start exploring.

You can browse songs by year, search for artists, filter by genre, and play music through YouTube.

There's also a random song option, which is probably one of my favorite parts.

Sometimes it brings up a song I completely forgot existed.

And then I end up listening to it for the next 20 minutes.

You can also save songs you like and come back to them later.

Nothing particularly groundbreaking from a technical perspective, but it's been a fun project to work on.

The interesting part is the memories

While building this, I started thinking about how we associate certain songs with specific periods of our lives.

Take 2010, for example.

If you were a teenager around that time, there's a good chance some of those songs remind you of school, old friends, or the early days of social media.

For someone else, the exact same songs might remind them of college, their first job, or a road trip.

It's the same music, but everyone has their own memories attached to it.

And I think that's what makes going back through old hits so enjoyable.

You're not necessarily looking for something new to listen to.

Sometimes you just want to hear something familiar.

Why I built it

I'm an independent developer working on a collection of small web projects under UsefulGo.

Most of the things I build are practical tools, but I also like experimenting with ideas that are simply fun to use.

UsefulGo Hits is one of those experiments.

I don't have some huge plan to reinvent how people discover music. I just thought it would be nice to have a place where you could explore popular songs from different years without having to search for playlists manually.

There are still things I'd like to improve, especially the song collection and the overall browsing experience.

But the basic idea is working, so I figured I'd share it here.

Give it a try

If you have a minute, here's something fun to try.

Go to hits.usefulgo.com and select the year you were 16.

Listen to a few songs from that year.

I'm curious whether you'll recognize most of them, or whether you'll find something you haven't thought about in ages.

And if you do try it, I'd love to know:

Which year brings back the most music memories for you?

For some reason, I feel like everyone has that one year when the music just seemed better.

Thanks for reading, and I'd really appreciate any feedback on the project.

Website: https://hits.usefulgo.com/

freetools