Edward Sun 
On May 15, 2026, the Dutch DJ and record producer Martin Garrix released “Repeat It” with Ed Sheeran, after more than a decade in limbo. Garrix first played an early version at Ultra in 2015, and for years the track lived as one of those fan-circulated pop mysteries: fans knew it existed, no one expected it to come out, especially in 2026.
Its release lands during a strange week for pop. Across streaming, older records have been moving with the weight of current hits. Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean,” Justin Bieber and Nicki Minaj’s “Beauty and a Beat,” Katy Perry’s “The One That Got Away,” and Zara Larsson’s “Lush Life” have all found their way back into the chart conversation. Some came through TikTok. Some came through sync. Some came through fan demand. Together, they point to the same shift: Catalog pop is back in the active market.
Katy Perry’s “The One That Got Away” shows how fast this can happen. The song had already started gaining online before Perry’s team rolled out the Director’s Cut video with Stevie Nicks narration. That move gave the moment a frame. The audience had already returned to the song, and the team turned that attention into something easier to see, share, and talk about.
That distinction matters because catalog revivals rarely begin inside a boardroom. They usually start with listeners. A clip catches. A chorus gets reused. A lyric starts sounding different in a new setting. Then the team has to move quickly enough to meet the moment without making it feel forced.
Zara Larsson’s “Lush Life” had a much looser comeback. It started showing up again through TikTok, tour clips, fan dances, and the wave of 2016 nostalgia floating around online, giving her a real way out of Khia Asylum. The song already had the kind of hook people remember after one listen. The internet gave it a new setting, and the record started moving again.
Jess Glynne’s “Hold My Hand” found another path back through sync. Jet2 Holiday ads put the song in front of people again, then the internet turned the ad into a meme. The song picked up a second identity through repetition, humor, and that very specific vacation-commercial feeling. By the time the joke spread, the chorus was already back in circulation. Her 2018 single “I’ll Be There” getting a new remix on May 15 fits naturally into that climate. Once people remember the voice, a remix has somewhere to land.
Although “Rewind Repeat It” was not officially released before to be claimed catalog music, it sits on the vault-release side of the story with one extra twist: it arrived under the banner of Martin Garrix celebrating his 30th birthday and heading into a new tour cycle. Its appeal comes from fan memory, years of waiting, and the odd value of a song people already knew before they could officially stream it. That makes it a useful example of where catalog logic is headed. The past can return through a personal milestone, a tour setup, a TikTok clip, a sync placement, a remix, a fan edit, or a long-delayed release that already has its own mythology.
The music industry has always sold nostalgia. What is different now is how quickly nostalgia can become popular again. A song does not have to wait for a greatest-hits package to become popular again. It can start to get popular because fans are still talking about it because an old hook fits a trend or because an artist finally gives the song an official release. Once that happens the smartest teams will keep pushing the song to keep it popular.
Now the past is rewinding and repeating like the present again.
LEARN MORE ABOUT MARTIN GARRIX: Spotify // Instagram // Tour
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