Time is a Stuck Record
by Shuja Haider
When the history of the music of the 21st century is written, two hit songs of the present decade may stand out as portents of what was to come: “Dreams” by Fleetwood Mac and “Running Up That Hill” by Kate Bush, both of them 20th-century songs that landed on the Billboard Hot 100 during the lifetime of a present-day kindergartener.
“Dreams” had already topped the chart on its release in 1977, as a single from the enduringly popular Rumours LP. It had a second life 43 years later, when 420doggface208, a potato factory worker in Idaho, recorded a TikTok video of himself enjoying the song while riding a skateboard and drinking cranberry juice. After the video went viral, the song once again charted, eventually rising to the No. 12 spot. Fleetwood Mac got a big hit without having to do anything, and 420doggface208 got some kind of sponsorship from Ocean Spray—a real win-win situation.
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