It seems like a long time ago that I knew all the songs on the Top 40. Those were the days (WARNING: Nerdstalgia ahead!) when Top 40 meant ALL kinds of music on one radio station to which everyone listened at least a little. Dad liked Sinatra, Mom listened to advice guy “Dr.” Bernard Meltzer, and my sister and I liked rock, so in the car we all listened to the station everyone could settle on, big AM Top 40 station WABC, and we all knew every song, whether it was the Stones or Dean Martin or Marvin Gaye or Kenny Rogers or Donna Summer. Everyone knew every song. You had to, because you ended up by default on that station. Eventually, I went to college, where it was all punk/indie all the time (except for having to hear Neil Young’s Decade over and over because the guy who lived above me sophomore year would play it all night, every night all year long while passed out stoned on his futon), and I lost track; other than a brief run working in Top 40 radio as an adult, I’ve pretty much moved on from pop.

But the days of everyone listening to one format of music are long gone, everyone can find a niche and never leave it, and so we come to the latest mashup of the year’s top pop songs by Daniel Kim, “Pop Danthology 2012,” a convenient video with bits of 55 hits. Some are the kind of songs that were inescapable this year — “Call Me Maybe,” Gotye, “Gangnam Style,” “We Are Young” (the bane of Jonah Ray’s existence), that Alex Clare song that was in commercials — and some, well, I’d have to look them up or use Shazam or Soundcloud, because I don’t listen to KIIS and I just don’t feel compelled to remember which song is One Direction and which is Justin Bieber. Plus, if I never hear a Maroon 5 song again, I’ll be fine with that. The mix omits some big songs — no country crossovers, so Taylor Swift isn’t here (and, really, is “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together” country at all?), and straight-ahead rock isn’t represented (no Black Keys? Shameful), but if you want a representative sample of pop music circa 2012, this is it.

So, it’s eight minutes of pop hits merged into a single megamix. The full list of songs included is here. See how many you know. There is no prize for knowing them all.

HT: The Daily What