Best Decade for Music

[JirinPanthosa]

Rock & roll-era music historians/critics would agree with us on that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolling_Stone's_500_Greatest_Songs_of_All_Time



Likewise, I have a college-level textbook on R&R-era music history. Its chapter breakdown is as follows:

• Up to 1955: 1 chapter
• Remainder of the 1950s: 1 chapter
• 1960s: 5 chapters
• 1970s: 3 chapters
• 1980s: 2 chapters
• 1990s: 2 chapters
• 2000s: 1 chapter

The 1960s are simply the cultured choice.

Or one could argue based on that, the marketable choice.

If you ask a Conservatory student the entirety of important music is ten people from over three hundred years ago. I think anyone who honestly says that 1960s music is that much better than all other pop/rock music just hasn't taken the time to fully explore all the niches that are around now. Also I would argue there is major Canon Bias, especially for music writers.

Yes, good music was centralized, popular, and playing on the radio in the late 60s, and since then popular music has gotten safer and more polished and good music has splintered into a thousand niches and subcultures. So 1960s is the music that's easiest to agree on. But it's not unquestionably the greatest decade, just the decade where discovering the best music requires the least work.

The de-facto Rock Canon we have now is no different from the Classical Canon. Not entirely inaccurate, but not complete, and causes a lot of bias and summary dismissal against anything not on the list.

 

[StarCruiser]

Okay - already picked my answer - 1980's. Why? Because:

A - Great decade for new music, both from the USA and overseas (New Wave and all that).
B - Lots of old bands from the 60's and 70's still pumping out good music.
C - Could still get that good ol' Rock and/or Roll from the 50's all the way up to the new stuff just about anywhere...

 

[Daisyjayne]

The 60's why? The Beatles !

 

[maneth]

1980s for me! Although I have a very eclectic taste in music so I'll probably find something worth listening to in every decade since the introduction of recorded music.

 

[MacLeod]

1980s for me! Although I have a very eclectic taste in music so I'll probably find something worth listening to in every decade since the introduction of recorded music.

I'm somewhat similar, I might only like 1 or 2 tracks from a particular artist and not be overly keen on their other works. Same goes for genres of music.

 

[Owain Taggart]

I'd say the 1960's. I've always felt like I was born in the wrong decade as I was always more attracted to music from the 60's, less so the 70's, and the 80's is what I ended up growing up with. I've always found myself identifying myself more with music from the 60's.

Here's a related website that I've always found really interesting: https://www.concerthotels.com/100-years-of-rock/

 

[Santaman]

For me it is a looooooooooooong era, I start at 1976.. Jean-Michel Jarre -Oxygene this sparked my interest in electronic music.. halfway the 80's there was some AC/DC coming in.. then the 90's Rammstein and Lacuna Coil, Nightwish metal arrived in my sphere of interest..

But personally the widest and most varied interest in music is the here and now.. it spans electronic music, ambient, trance, vocal trance , industrial metal, symphonic metal and many other kinds of metal, prog and more kinds of music.

I can easily listen to Arch Enemy and then listen to Lindsey Stirling and then hop to Boards of Canada and then to Ayreon for a dose of prog and then PAIN for some metal again.

 

[Kor]

Might as well rename the thread "When were you a teenager?"

I generally can't stand anything that reminds me of those years.

Kor

 

[The Old Mixer]

I've always felt like I was born in the wrong decade

Same here. The fact that '60s retro was in during the '80s just underscored that.

I like to say that the Beatles are my favorite '80s band.

 

[gblews]

I really can't determine which decade I like most in terms of popular music.

But I can say that regardless of which decade(s) we may prefer, the most important decades were the '50's, '60's, and '70's. Those 3 decades presented us with new forms of popular music and a few artists that took the music in entirely new directions that later artists followed in droves. Understand, I'm NOT saying there hasn't been any good music made after 1979 or great new artists after that date.

Minimally, the '50's gave us rock and roll, the '60's brought us soul music (an amalgam of r&B and pop) and the first British wave (including the Beatles), and the 70's brought us disco (for better or worse), hip hop (including rap), reggae, and some might argue, jazz fusion, some of which made the pop charts.

IMO, the most important things that happened in the decades that followed didn't really involve the music directly, but ways in which the music was conveyed. Those two things are MTV (two edged sword which spread artists music globally but made "looks" an integral part of success in the business), and the internet (including digital tech), which destroyed record companies (a good thing).

Again, not saying no great artists or music since 1979, just that there have not been any comparable new musical trends or artists who have led the music in new directions (that most others followed). There is a lot of contemporary music that I think is great.

 

[Owain Taggart]

Same here. The fact that '60s retro was in during the '80s just underscored that.

Hmm, I hadn't even considered it that way. I just know that anytime the Beach Boys were on the radio, I was pretty happy, and in turn, I became a pretty big BB fan. The 60's were an interesting decade musically in terms of what it offered. There was so much variety and it was going in some interesting directions. I ended up seeing a shell of the band in the late 2000's.

 

[MacLeod]

Same here. The fact that '60s retro was in during the '80s just underscored that.

I like to say that the Beatles are my favorite '80s band.

Could that perhaps in part be due to the fact that the teenagers of the 60's where the parents of teenagers of the 80's?

 

[The Old Mixer]

Not in my case. My parents were teens in the late '50s and pre-British Invasion '60s. I had little reason to associate post-British Invasion music with my parents.

 

[Gov Kodos]

All of them and none. Pop culture and its music is endlessly recyclable, a commodity for consumption that is enjoyed and enjoyable especially for being as easily forgettable and forgotten to no noticeable regret as any flavor of pop tart or computer game. Used record stores are filled with once must have albums.

 

[1001001]

Not in my case. My parents were teens in the late '50s and pre-British Invasion '60s. I had little reason to associate post-British Invasion music with my parents.

My parents were the right age, but had no interest in the British invasion. I don't think we had one Beatles or Rolling Stones album in our house. I don't know why not.

My dad listened to Steely Dan and Credence Clearwater Revival. My mom liked Janis Joplin, but also crap like Barry Manilow.

 

[The Old Mixer]

My parents swung in the opposite direction...the records they had were pre-British Invasion...most notably some vintage Elvis singles and his Christmas album.

Some of my earliest exposure to '60s music was via my mom, though...she used to listen to an easy listening station in the car in the early '70s, when I was a preschooler, that was still playing lighter fare from the late '60s.

 

[feek61]

For me the 1960's & 1970's but honestly I listen to stuff from the earliest days of recorded to music to current music.

 

[Kirby]

1980’s

 

[Nerys Myk]

The 1960's, with the 1980's a close second. My teen years were the 1970's, make of that what you will.

 

[Random_Spock]

Going with other, since I like more than one period of time music wise. Generally anything from the 60's-80's. Some 90's stuff and 2000's stuff too.