What music decade do you prefer and why?

Mine is the 80s

I voted for the 70s, and specifically because rock is my most-listened-to genre. Rock-and-roll wasn't "invented" in the 70s, but it underwent a huge amount of refinement in this decade, and many new sub-genres originated in the 70s. Punk, progressive rock, and disco ( ) were three of the most influencial styles that came out of that decade.

And on a more personal, biased note, Pink Floyd's Animals (1977) is, in my opinion, the greatest album ever recorded and is representative of the entire decade.

My second favorite decade would be the 90s, as I'm also heavily into grunge and alternative rock, two of the most prominent and influential rock styles from that decade (though both actually started some time in the 80s).

Why?

Because I like every kind of music made in this decade, expecially melodic rock and pop/synthpop songs (Van Halen, The Who, Clash, XTC, Europe, Depeche Mode, Devo, Kraftwerk etc..)

I was born in this decade and, being a nostalgic, I like even good old home computers.
My favourite albums are "The Who - Tommy", "Level 42 - Running In The Family", "Peter Gabriel - So" and "Van Halen - 1984"

Now I really feel old. The PC was invented when I was in high school.

When I was growing up, we didn't have these fancy schmancy computers. The only tele-communications we had were telephones, and the telephones were wired to the wall. But on the bright side...when there was no one to talk to on the telephone, we had a whopping 13 channels on television to choose from (and in black-and-white, even).

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BTW...I agree about the 80s being a great decade musically. I actually think all of these decades had their own powerful impact on music. There was no "bad decade".

The 60s gave us The Rolling Stones, the 70s gave us Rush, the 80s gave us The Cure, the 90s gave us Pearl Jam, and now we have............umm......Britney Spears?

I think that the 90s comes with few innovations, almost recycling the ideas of the previous decade.
For example bands like No Doubt, Garbage (and the pop music in general) they went all influenced by 80s

IMO only bands like Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins, Soundgarden Oasis and few others carried out new music..

I picked the 70s, but I was debating 70s and 60s. My favorite era is no doubt the late 60s. So many f=great albums from 1966 to 1969; Pet Sounds, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, Abbey Road, Led Zeppelin I & II, James Taylor's Self Titled, all of Bob Dylan's late 60s albums, etc.

Actually, the 80s are my least favorite musical decade. But I don't feel like commenting on it for now.

Anyway, my list would be:
60s: The Beatles (universally regarded as the greatest pop/rock band ever, so I guess I don't need to comment on it further)
70s: Pink Floyd (yes, they were already around in the 60s, but the 70s-era PF is my favorite)
80s: Metallica (the true speed metal kings, made their best albums in the 80s)
90s: Now this is pretty hard: picking one band that ruled the 90s. My "nominees" would be Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins, Tool, Radiohead, ... and a few others.

And we're still too early in this decade to know who's going to rule the 00s. I'd be surprised if it were Britney Spears. Maybe Coldplay ? (although I have no idea how big they are outside of Europe)

Well it doesn't seem so early when you notice that some of the bands you mention were already kicking ass/producing their best work three years into their own decades

I think that by know we should be starting to see a trend.
So far I think there is none.
Many of the "top bands" in the world, while good, offer nothing but rehashes of old music styles.

Oh, and I live in Mexico and Coldplay is BIG

Not a hard choice for me. 70's. So many great artists and bands, it would take weeks to explain why.

While some were certainly doing good things in the sixties & eighties, for the most part, they hit their stride in the seventies.

Quite true. But then again, the 80s were greatly influenced by the 70s, the 70s were greatly influenced by the 60s, and on and on. The fact is, many of the 90s bands I like were playing in garages and bars in the 80s, so are they a 90s band or an 80s band? A lot of overlap to contend with.

Each decade builds on the previous decade, and each new musical form builds on some previous musical form (or a combination of musical forms). Just note the musical influences of any artist/band to see prominent players from previous decades. So, who's the source of all rock music...the artist whose style and method all subsequent artists derive from?

Elvis, baby!

(Just kidding...living in GA, I'm really tired of Elvis, personally.)

the poll is missing options - my choice by a huge margin is the 1940's, followed by the 1930's and then 1890-1910.

Being a blues, jazz, R&B, rock&roll and (early) Country&Western fan, I'd vote for the 50's overall.


Of course, the 18th century (Beethoven, Mozart) isn't listed either



Elvis of course "borrowed" heavily from Chuck Berry, Ike Turner, Ray Charles and other artists that were confined to "race" records. Elvis popularized black music (for white people) and put a hillbilly stamp on it. That doesn't make him the ultimate source

I know...I was just kidding saying "Elvis" specifically. One of the artists you mention would have been more applicable.

I just wanted to emphasize that almost all modern music (especially rock music) comes from something previous. Level of "invention" varies, but anything totally new would be rare indeed.

Early 90s for me: Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Smashing Pumpkins, Soundgarden, Rage Against The Machine, STP, Tool, and more.

Yeah I figured that's what you meant.
True musical originality is certainly hard to come by in most any genre.
What would the inimitable Thelonious Monk be without Duke Ellington/ Billy Strahorn? Probably not a jazz pianist at all.

Every form of music has evolved from something else. I've seen bands mentioned above for being innovative when in actual fact they're probably some of the biggest rip offs about.

ie Oasis, they're just Beatle's fanatics with a couple of books of poems. I've seen many breakdowns of What's The Story showing where bit's and pieces have been borrowed from. This doesn't make them bad, I like that album!


Completely agree. I couldn't pick a favourite though.


Elbow are largely unknown outside of the UK but I have high hopes.

How about now? There's definately some cool stuff going on in the trance scene these days.

heh... well, I never realised this, but if I think of my favourite five albums at the moment, I have one from the 70s, one from the 80s, 2 from the 90s, and one from this decade... and I can't see any reason to say that the 90s was the best, so it's pretty even really... No vote.

Surely Coldplay couldn't be remembered as a significant part of the 00s... there are plenty of bands that sell lots of albums without actually being any good..

"00's the decade of stagnation and soulless imitation"

yep, there are some really interesting artists, especially in the idm department(especially the reappearance of good old accoustic instruments, creating a harmonic atmosphere where acoustics and electronics don't fight each other but go hand-in-hand forming a symbiosis instead).

But when looking at underground/unpopular artists, there have been interesting approaches in every decade. The way we're rating decades here isn't underground, but instead "how good mainstream music was". And with this last sentence in mind, i stand by my quote at the beginning of this post.

Then again... the 00's have just begun... we don't know yet what will happen in the next years..... maybe there will be a rise of indie-music, bundled with the revisiting of forgotten acoustic instruments, who knows?

I voted for the 80's because no matter what music i do hear, i get this warm feeling when hearing this typical 80's sound(no, i'm NOT talking about the mass-raping of old classics which is happening currently in the charts).

- Lyx

I think this kind of thing is very dependant on what type of music is being discussed.

You're type of music may be stagnating in this decade, while my type may be doing well so far (though I totally agree that it's still too early in this decade to come to any conclusion).

The same concept of subjectiveness would apply for each type of music across each decade. The 1970s...great for funk, not so revolutionary for classical. The 1790s...great for classical, not so great for rock. The 1950s...great for rock, not much for metal, though.

I just don't think anyone can say that any particular decade was just good or just bad for music in general. Each decade generated some really great music, and some really sucky music. It's all a matter of what kind of music you like...

Well, i'm listening to very different kinds of music. I don't consider myself fixed to a certain direction.

As i mentioned already, the way i was rating the 00's was mainstream music - looking at the charts in the 80's and 90's there has been IMHO alot more creativity, innovation, feeling and euphory than nowadays. It just perfectly fits the rest of how things a done nowadays - big hype, low content - a world of mass-manufactured shiny looking bubbles.

oh, hmm, wait..... there indeed is something new in the 00's "after more than 20 years, goth-music becomes mainstream". But since goth-music IMHO isn't even a real music-style, but instead just a dark mirror of other established styles, one could argue, that this too isn't really something new, and instead just a reflection of stagnation and depression in this decade.

Oh, BTW: it isn't that the kind of music i do like is stagnating... instead there is happing alot of interesting stuff - but its mostly unpopular and not mainstream. So, the above opinion reflects the music i don't listen too.

- Lyx

I spent most of my youth in the nineties and inspired by this thread look back at the mainstream, I mostly remember the charts being flooded by Take That, The Kelly Family, Dj Bobo, Ace of Base (I can still hear them singing "I saw the sign") and some Rednex. At that time I classified most stuff as "music for girls" and tremendously annoying dance. Damn, there was a lot of that: Capella, Sin with Sebastian, Corona, Squeezer, Das Modul, Blümchen, Masterboy, MC Sar & The Real McCoy, Magic Affair...

At least that's how I remember the 90's mainstream.

PS: I googled up this nice (German) page: http://www.charts-surfer.de/musikcharts1024.htm You can look up Germany's top songs of a given year or decade (and that of the UK, Europe, USA and of course Bavaria ). Basically my memory hasn't served me all that bad. Throw in a handfull of rock pieces and a dose of hip-hop plus plenty of "romantic music" and you're set.