Can’t concentrate because you’re too busy wondering if you’ll ever be able to eat at a restaurant again or see just a single friend from time to time? Here’s a tip: r/RetroLibraryMusic is the choral El Dorado of nostalgic tunes from your past, and playing them while you work will raise your focus back to where it was pre-pandemic, when you had all sorts of enjoyable things to look forward to.
It’s simple: Research shows that songs from the past can send us back in time, so when we hear jingles from our coronavirus-free days, our mentality shifts from outta gas to “I, a man who’s never heard of COVID, can meet my buddies at an open establishment after I study hard and ace this biology test.” Ah, wasn’t motivation great?
Better yet, because the melodies shared in r/RetroLibraryMusic were used in the likes of science documentaries, movies played at museums and even some of your favorite nostalgic TV shows — library music is recorded for the purpose of use in film, television, radio and other media, after all — they have many of the same characteristics as the scientifically-proven best study music: No lyrics, reasonable tempos and ambient sounds.
For example, here’s an upbeat library track from the mid-1990s children’s show, Real Wheels, which featured people who worked jobs that required vehicles:
Then there’s this galvanizing tune from the 1960s British show, Freewheelers, all about teens who prevented ominous threats to England’s national security:
And here are several hella-funky songs from the original 1960s animated Spider-Man TV series:
Once you listen through all of it, maybe by then you’ll be able to go to a restaurant.
Ian Lecklitner
Ian Lecklitner is a staff writer at MEL Magazine. He mostly writes about everyone's favorite things: Sex, drugs and food.
