New parents know that in the initial days, weeks, and months after bringing their newborn home, sleep becomes a persistent concern. This isn't just a worry for the baby; it extends to the parents and caregivers as well. Sleep arrives in inconvenient bursts, is constantly interrupted, and never seems sufficient to maintain the desired level of energy, calm, or alertness. To create a serene and comforting environment for all involved, you implement a few key practices, including maintaining an entirely dark room regardless of the time of day, ensuring an ample supply of bedding, clothing, and essential supplies and doing all you can to prepare for periods of long sleepless and frustrating nights ahead. Equally important however is the soundtrack to this environment.

When my first child was born, one of the first gifts I received from a family member was a plush toy whale which they had bought in the hospital gift shop while we were still in the recovery room. This toy, designed for infants, played ambient sounds and emitted softly pulsing multicolor lighting. Its presence became a constant for our newborn during moments of settling down, napping, or the sporadic hours of deep sleep. The repetitive and engaging melodies played by the whale not only soothed my baby but also had a surprisingly calming effect on me. I found the music that played on loop from the whale to be strangely engaging, humming the simple melodies throughout my daily routine as if it were still playing in the background. After a while, I tried tracking down the manufacturer of the toy to see if the music was credited to anyone in particular or if it was something I could purchase. This was tougher than expected, so instead I found more music that provided the same calming feeling, texture, and aesthetic, and began to keep a running playlist for myself along the way. What emerged was an ever changing exploration into these atmospheric sounds, relaxing in their spatial awareness and calming in their composition. 

You often hear what a profound impact that melodies can have on a baby's well-being. Recognizing this, I curated a collection that weaves together the soothing threads of new age, ambient, acoustic, electronic and instrumental music. This playlist can serve as a tranquil backdrop, fostering a calm environment, to engage their budding senses. It features minimalism from decades past, solo piano pieces and various mesmerizing electronic tracks that provide the texture, harmonic logic, and sense of wonder I associate with those early days of parenthood.

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The following is an excerpt from Sound Signal, Third Bridge Creative's biweekly music intelligence newsletter produced in partnership with Chartmetric. In the newsletter, we identify emerging artists and tracks, as well as other scenes, trends, or new genres. If you like knowing what's next, you can sign up for Sound Signal here.

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Guardians of the Galaxy fans have been eagerly anticipating a new soundtrack ahead of the release of the franchise's third installment on May 5. Earlier this week, director James Gunn revealed the tracklist for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3: Awesome Mix Vol. 3 Original Motion Picture Soundtrack. By repurposing oldies but goodies, GotG soundtracks have done very well for themselves: Vol. 1 topped the Billboard 200 in 2014, and Vol. 2 (released in 2017) made it to No. 4 on the same chart. These were soon followed by a slew of other nostalgia-minded sync opportunities, and music synchronization revenue from TV, film, and advertising has seen an impressive 29.9 percent increase year-over-year by the midyear mark of 2022. 

The GotG syncs—largely mined from '60s and '70s gems—also established a parallel nostalgia timeline that the film and TV industries have followed. Marvel’s 2017 blockbuster Thor: Ragnarok famously made use of Led Zeppelin’s thunderous 1970 hit “Immigrant Song,” quickly resulting in a 189 percent spike in Spotify streams worldwide. In the past year, that timeline has inched up to the '80s. Kate Bush’s 1985 cult classic “Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)” appeared throughout Season 4 of the Netflix series Stranger Things, driving streams of her music to grow over 20,000 percent, while the use of Depeche Mode’s 1987 synth-pop banger "Never Let Me Down Again" in the 2023 HBO series The Last of Us tripled its official on-demand U.S. streams overnight.

The new GotG soundtrack continues to push the timeline forward, drawing on songs from artists not only from the '80s but also from the '90s and 2000s, including “Creep” by Radiohead, “Dog Days Are Over” by Florence + the Machine, and “We Care a Lot” by Faith No More. It’ll be interesting to see if audiences are ready for this jump and how this impacts the nostalgia timeline of the sync economy.