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80’s the best decade ever for music?

brosept

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Jun 13, 2010
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I jacked up my back, just muscle strain, so nothing very serious, but because of it I’m home watching the World Series, chilling with some Bourbon County Stout, and giving myself some real nice e-stim on the back in front of the fireplace while I surf Spotify. Really a great combination to be honest.

Spotify has taken me down the rabbit hole though which is dangerous. The 1980’s, and then into the early 90’s, is when music truly becane diversified. So many sounds and styles. There were fewer and more narrow genres previously. The 60’s started it, it expanded in the 70’s, but it exploded in the 80’s and into the early 90’s.

So many genres and so much greatness in the 80’s. I think we are all biased by the time we grew up in because that’s when music meant the most to us and had the biggest impact on us, but the 80’s and into the early 90’s were truly great.

For reference I was 6-14yo in the 80’s, was in HS 1988-92, and was in college 1992-1997 (Masters in 5 years, not a Bluto Blutarski situation). That’s my music prime.

80’s- late disco, punk/europunk, birth of alternative, stadium tour rock, hair band, heavy metal, birth (probably more late 70’s) or at least emergence of rap, country started to be more than twang, pop completely changed (the king of pop became a thing, literally)

early 90’s- grunge rock (underrated), country explosion, East Coast/West Coast rap war

Growing up in that time has made me like almost every type of music still today.

What music era defined you or do you identify with, and what do you still listen to like it was just released yesterday?
 
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Are we talking about bands that started in the 80's?

The 60's created the majority of my favorite bands. The Rolling Stones, Grateful Dead, The Band, and so many more.
 
I hardly listen to anything post 90s. Today's music is ****ing shit.
I like a lot of it, but within each genre it really sounds the same. There is a male and female sound in each genre. Not much uniqueness or creativity. There is a marketable sound that most seem to try to copy.
 
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From the 50's to 90's music was great. The rap that came after that was just absolutely horrendous. Rappers aren't musicians, they cant sing, they cant read music, they can't play real musical instruments; its just a bunch of yelling in a microphone about the dumbest sh!t you you've ever heard and then they repeat saying it 10 times. Have you ever heard rap live? I've seen better at 6th grade talent shows. It's the worst sounding Sh!t you've ever heard. Rap=Fake music, fake musicians.
 
Are we talking about bands that started in the 80's?

The 60's created the majority of my favorite bands. The Rolling Stones, Grateful Dead, The Band, and so many more.
Just music that came out in the 80’d and early 90’s
 
I'm hardly a music aficionado but 90's is where it's at all (genres) IMO. 80's music really sucks with exceptions of course. I like classic rock of 70's and 60's. Early to mid 2000's alternative and rap are still good.
 
The Beatles are the most overrated band in history.
Not compared to the era. The music coming out of the 50’s and into the 60’s was atrocious. The English invasion and Motown save us from decades of crooning, twangy country, and Elvis impersonation.
 
Best for rock for sure, but what else really?
The 70s were truly a branch-point in music evolution. It gave rise to almost every genre that followed to this day including modern country/country-rock (Eagles, Ronstadt & others), southern rock (Skynyrd, 38 Special), early rap (Aerosmith, Blondie), hip-hop (Sugar Hill Gang), disco (multiple artists), funk (Parliament), hard rock (multiple artists), sappy pop (Carpenters), jazz-rock (Steely Dan), folk ballads (Gordon Lightfoot), etc. With maybe the exception of the 50s, the 70s were the most influential decade in music history.
 
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The correct answer - every decade has good music, any opinion here is heavily influenced by nostalgia.
This is the truth. Additionally it’s very difficult to compare generations. I’ve always found its better to respect all genres vs judging them against the ones you like.
A common BS line is that there is no good music today. Of course that is totally idiotic. With the digital revolution the ability to create music is more widespread and there is an amazing supply of fantastic music on Spotify from every genre.
 
WXRT has a best of Saturday flashback show 9-noon. Streamable in Radio.com. I rarely miss it.

Last week was ‘78. Awesome. This week - now - ‘87. Very good.

Kind of depends where you were in life, I think. I was 17 in ‘78 and 26 in ‘87. ‘78 much more evocative. Was reminded how brilliant was ‘Beast of Burden’ last week, among other memories.
 
OP, looks like muscle relaxers are taking you somewhere you shouldn't be. Time to quit them before you get too far.
 
R&B - Stevie Wonder, Temptations, Marvin Gaye, plus about 10,000 one hit wonders. There was some crap as well, but same with any decade. Just more good and bad music in the 70s. There was some great stuff in the 80s - I graduated high school in 86 - but on the whole, just a lot more corporate stuff. Videos were more important than songs. Singles more important than albums.
 
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OP, looks like muscle relaxers are taking you somewhere you shouldn't be. Time to quit them before you get too far.

Disagree, keep on with those flexies and up the dose cause this was your best thread ever.
 
R&B - Stevie Wonder, Temptations, Marvin Gaye, plus about 10,000 one hit wonders. There was some crap as well, but same with any decade. Just more good and bad music in the 70s. There was some great stuff in the 80s - I graduated high school in 86 - but on the whole, just a lot more corporate stuff. Videos were more important than songs. Singles more important than albums.
The 70’s had good music, no doubt. Best/Worst is subjective and pretty much framed by our age. Childhood to mid twenties is typically the music that people cling to as theirs.

As for your list of artists, they are all Motown. Granted those artists performed in the 70’s, but Motown started in the 60’s. I was making a point more about how music diversified and evolved in the 80’s, not necessarily just that it had great songs or artists.

The birth of the video in the 80’s led to:
1) more competition to be unique
2) more commercialization and progression of pop which pushed boundaries to stand out and above
3) an opportunity for consumers to be exposed to “seeing” more styles of music

it was a very important decade for music.
 
70’s-80’s music was exceptional. Also best decades to have been in college at Mizzou. Liquor control didn’t move to Columbia until the later part of the 80’s.
 
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The 70’s had good music, no doubt. Best/Worst is subjective and pretty much framed by our age. Childhood to mid twenties is typically the music that people cling to as theirs.

As for your list of artists, they are all Motown. Granted those artists performed in the 70’s, but Motown started in the 60’s. I was making a point more about how music diversified and evolved in the 80’s, not necessarily just that it had great songs or artists.

The birth of the video in the 80’s led to:
1) more competition to be unique
2) more commercialization and progression of pop which pushed boundaries to stand out and above
3) an opportunity for consumers to be exposed to “seeing” more styles of music

it was a very important decade for music.

graduated high school in 88. While I still like that era I continue to evolve and get into new music. Lots of people stay in their lane, those glory years but I just continue to find some really great stuff. My biggest disappointment is that the stupid AMA’s, Grammy’s and other music award shows fail to recognize anything other then the mainstream
 
Beatles started the music revolution in the 60's and hold most of the records that you mention. Drake is not a blip on the musical radar.

They actually don't hold most of them anymore, because Drake is on his way to being the biggest artist of your lifetime whether you acknowledge it or not. He is not just the biggest artist in the world for the past decade but will smash every Billboard record left by the time he retires.
 
They actually don't hold most of them anymore, because Drake is on his way to being the biggest artist of your lifetime whether you acknowledge it or not. He is not just the biggest artist in the world for the past decade but will smash every Billboard record left by the time he retires.

Wow, I would have never guessed that.

Who hold the record for most #1 hits that were written, performed and produced by the same person?
 
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