When building a 100-year archive, you need a place to stand. A vantage point. It came about by trying to truly reconnect with music, searching for historical connection points. This is why I often suggest people start their journey through the archive in 1996.

1996 was a pivotal year for me personally, but more importantly, it serves as the perfect starting point for the entire project. Standing in the mid-90s allows you to look deep into the past, while simultaneously casting an eye forward into the digital future. Well, a little forward, anyway. Then we stop. We stop at 2030 because this archive is not an open-ended projection of the future; it is about encapsulating a highly specific, relatively short era: 1930 to 2030.

The anchor year is 1996. Consider how Your Woman by White Town sounds so intrinsically of its era—a bedroom-produced electronic hit—yet it relies entirely on a muffled, crackling trumpet sample.

That sample is ripped straight from the 1932 track My Woman by Lew Stone (featuring Al Bowlly). By placing these two tracks in the same overarching archive, suddenly 1996 and 1932 are inextricably linked. The archive isn't a straight, boring chronological line; it's a web of influences, much like how Bronski Beat laid the groundwork for the synth-pop that would follow them.

This is why understanding the lineage matters. A hundred years is enough time to watch these cultural echoes bounce back and forth.