I’m writing this in that week between Christmas and New Year’s—everyone is feeling mushy & reflective, the end-of-year recaps are starting to populate social media, and I’m finding myself wistfully looking back on 2024 with a sense of nostalgia… even though it just ended.  

I love nostalgia—that sentimental yearning toward some past period. Included in my top 5 movies of all time are The Incredibles (2005) and The Lion King (1995)—animated films that I essentially grew up with. Yes, I believe they are both masterpieces, near perfect films, etc etc… but I reckon nostalgia has a slight hand in the love I have for them. My favourite songs are ones that immediately feel nostalgic—there’s this chest-tightening, warm-feeling, could-burst-with-emotion sense that I get when listening. Something about the way music interplays with lyrics seems to bring me back to a feeling that I miss, a time I remember, or a feeling I wish for—nostalgia.

There’s a personal element to nostalgia, then there’s also a collective element. I think it’s safe to say that my generation (Gen Z, if you couldn’t tell) is obsessed with nostalgia - maybe even pop culture as a whole. Disney remakes & sequels (my aforementioned favourite movies fell victim: The Incredibles, 2018; The Lion King, 2019), reboots of old TV shows (Gossip Girl, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air), and even Taylor Swift’s rerecording project all seek to pull on our collective heartstrings, begging for us to feel nostalgic. This is felt both personally and in community, as we absorb pop culture synchronously.

I promise I’ll try not to write about Taylor Swift incessantly, but The Eras Tour is too good an example to ignore. A tour built on a decades-long career, re-recorded album releases, releasing Taylor’s Version albums mid-tour, playing records that had never been toured, and even dropping a brand new record... it’s easy to see how nostalgia was at play here.

Taylor even asks the crowd “are you ready to go back to high school with me?” during the intro of You Belong With Me, and all of a sudden an arena of girls are drowning in nostalgia as we declare that our high school love is just simply meant to be with us! Young girls, older fans, teenage-girls-in-their-twenties, moms + daughters… collectively finding themselves transported in a feeling of nostalgia, all through the music. Then amongst this collective nostalgia are the songs that got us through that heartbreak or time of life - songs we relate to in ways nobody else understands. The personal + community elements of nostalgia interplay, and we’re left with an experience that can be nostalgic in the very moment we are living it. (Enough about The Eras Tour though.)

Perhaps that’s how I feel about 2024—the type of nostalgia that comes from living life soundtracked by music that carries meaning, becoming memories.

Music carries so much nostalgia for me. I am a diehard album girlie, and my 2024 listening was predominantly marked by new releases that I had on repeat, until another release came and caught my attention. When I listen to albums that came out this year, I find myself reminded of the first few weeks getting acquainted with it.

I can place myself in the car with Bleachers by Bleachers, driving back from getting my hair done in April. Charm by Clairo immediately transports me to sunny summer days, sitting on the train during my commute to work. I listened to The Tortured Poets Department for the first time in LA—sometimes when I play it, it feels like I’m sitting on my bed that night texting my friends about all the lore I was uncovering in real time. Older by Lizzy McAlpine was by far my most played record this year, evoking memories of the studio flat I was living in at the time, walking home from late nights at work, and obsessing over the song Staying in a boy's car. Immediately when I hear anything from Brat by Charli XCX I’m reminiscing on nights out, visualizing the apple dance on TikTok, and wishing it wasn’t winter.

You get the idea.

Taylor sings “nostalgia is a mind’s trick” in her song I Hate it Here, suggesting that the nostalgia we experience is not a desire for the situation or feeling or circumstance, but just the memory. Nostalgia has a funny way of tricking you into thinking that something was better than it truly was—our brain’s way of escaping our current realities.

Music helps us do that. It takes us from where we are to where we once were, or maybe where we hope we’ll be (Dua Lipa has a record about that type of nostalgia). When we listen to music from specific times of our life, we are reminded of a situation or setting, but more likely we are also being reminded of the feelings of listening to that music during whatever was going on.

When I listen to my favourite albums of 2024 - Bleachers, Charm, TTPD, Older - I reminisce on how I felt while listening. It feels like memories of happiness & relief that the sun was finally returning, settling into a new job + apartment with ease, getting through a drawn-out heartbreak, and realizing I was finally healed.

2024 was a great year for me, but also a challenging one. Maybe it’s the inherent melancholia of one year ending and another beginning, or just winter blues (I live in the Pacific Northwest), but I feel nostalgic. Not in the “I want to go back to that moment” way, but in an “I miss that feeling” way. And it just makes me excited for all the music that will soundtrack 2025.

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(in case you didn’t catch the references)

Merriam-Webster, Inc. Nostalgia. Merriam-Webster, 2024.

The Lion King. Directed by Roger Allers and Rob Minkoff, Walt Disney Pictures, 1995.

The Incredibles. Directed by Brad Bird, Pixar Animation Studios, 2005.

The Lion King. Directed by Jon Favreau, Walt Disney Pictures, 2019.

Incredibles 2. Directed by Brad Bird, Pixar Animation Studios, 2018.

Gossip Girl. Created by Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage, Warner Bros. Television, 2007-2012.

The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Created by Andy and Susan Borowitz, NBC, 1990-1996.

Taylor Swift “I Hate It Here.” The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology, Republic Records, 2024.

Clairo. Charm. 2024.

Bleachers. Bleachers. 2024.

Taylor Swift. The Tortured Poets Department. 2024.

Lizzy McAlpine. Older. 2024.

Charli XCX. Brat. 2024.

Dua Lipa. Future Nostalgia. 2020.