Which was the best musical decade?

[Xann]

Thankyou OF. It wasn't a decade, it was an abooooooorrrtionnnnnahhhh.

The 70's were a bizarre decade.

Many of my most treasured albums come from the late 60's and early 70's. Around 73 things started to go badly wrong. The mid to late 70's were bad for Jazz, Rock, Psych and the Avant Garde.

I see Punk like a triple heart bypass - a sad but necessary measure at the time.

[Wainy316]

The 80's was a weird one, music was either awesome or complete tosh, no in between.

[mjmooney]

Well, the thing is, musical "decades" don't necessarily map to calendar decades.

As most people on this site know by now, I'm a big 60s & 70s enthusiast, but principally the SECOND half of the 60s (i.e. once pop started to metamorphose into "rock") and the FIRST half of the 70s (before punk threw the baby out with the bathwater).

So my favourite decade is 1965 to 1975, and I can't vote for one listed in the poll. If I absolutely had to though, I'd probably say the 60s, because of the sheer amount of innovation that started with The Beatles .

The WORST, by a long, long margin, was the 80s. Ghastly, just ghastly.

Mike

[mjmooney]

Thankyou OF. It wasn't a decade, it was an abooooooorrrtionnnnnahhhh.

The 70's were a bizarre decade.

Many of my most treasured albums come from the late 60's and early 70's. Around 73 things started to go badly wrong. The mid to late 70's were bad for Jazz, Rock, Psych and the Avant Garde.

I see Punk like a triple heart bypass - a sad but necessary measure at the time.

A man after my own heart. Actually, punk was not so much a triple heart bypass as an emergency amputation with a rusty knife. It maybe saved the patient's life, but it left him scarred and crippled.

Mike

[OldFart]

Punk came on top of hey, The Bay City Rollers (the kids'll really love em - oh dear)

[mjmooney]

Punk came on top of hey, The Bay City Rollers (the kids'll really love em - oh dear)

Well, yes, but there were always "teen idol" acts, whether it was Mark Wynter, or The Osmonds, or The Rollers, or Westlife. They got on my nerves a bit, but by and large I could ignore them - their audience was always 10-year-old girls, who have as much right to have their own music as the rest of us.

I think we have to compare "like with like": The Pistols and clash weren't really replacing The Rollers, they were replacing (or trying to) the likes of Genesis, Jethro Tull, Pink Floyd, etc.

Ironically, all three acts I've just named are still around now (although for my money they WERE washed up by the time punk came along).

I liked the Pistols and Clash singles, but they couldn't really do albums. I liked the progressive bands much more, but they mostly did their best work on their first three or four albums and then went stodgy.

Mike

[Svenne]

Well for me it is hard to pick between 60´s - 70´s.

I´m only in my mid-twenties, but still, the music from that era is far more rejuvenated then todays music.

Bands like Beatles in the 60´s and others like Spotnicks,kinks,who. But Led Zeppelin in the 70´s (even though their first album came 69) lay the foundation. They along with the clash who i´m extremely grateful for. Otherwise we´d never hear The Libertines for example.

70´s! Prove me wrong 2000!

[tonyh29]

no 40's in the poll for Drat and old Fart :shock:

Has to be the 80's , the decade that gave us Big Country

[Condimentalist]

'90's were a brilliant decade for my kind of music.

[sam100]

'90's were a brilliant decade for my kind of music.

boyzone, take that and east 17?

[BillyShears]

As a youth movement, pop music had lost everything in the early 70's and we were being dished up glam rock. The alternative was prog rock. It was a joke. The music said nothing to me about my life, I was not represented. Glam rock represented the banal establishment, and prog rock was introverted naval gazing. On top of that school was shut 3 days a week because there was no coal/coke, scheduled power cuts meant trying to do homework by candle light, synthetic fibre clothing meant you freezed your knackers off, football violence was terrifying if you got in the wrong place at the wrong time i.e. at the game. There was no escape and nowhere to escape to because there was no yoof movement. I clung to Bowie for years & he was singing about spacemen!

Not knocking Floyd et al they are brilliant, but not for kids starting out in life wanting to take on the world, it was depressing. Then as if to really drive the final nail into our teenage coffins, along came disco. Great.

Punk swept the nation on all levels not just music, it was a grand time, we had got a youth movement and thousands of teenagers like me weren't going to miss the boat. I bought a bass guitar, joined band and made a racket.

[Condimentalist]

'90's were a brilliant decade for my kind of music.

boyzone, take that and east 17?

I was thinking more Sepultura, Pantera, Fear Factory

[Grogan_Avfc]

I voted 90's purely because of all the old classic house tunes i got on me 'puta

[OldFart]

puta

Don't USE that word Mr Grogan! (Means whore in Spanish)

[Wurzel]

puta

Don't USE that word Mr Grogan! (Means whore in Spanish)

I thought that was "posh"???

[Xann]

...and we were being dished up...

There lies the problem.

The 00's have been really quite cool for music. Information technology has enabled us all to listen to the music that we choose. Crap radio station playlists no longer bother me. Getting hold of decent sounds, from any decade or century, is much easier and cheaper.

[Grogan_Avfc]

puta

Don't USE that word Mr Grogan! (Means whore in Spanish)

thats what i meant, ive got lots of old classic house tunes on my spanish whore :winkold:

[OldFart]

Oh well that's OK then!

[blandy]

I think we have to compare "like with like": The Pistols and clash weren't really replacing The Rollers, they were replacing (or trying to) the likes of Genesis, Jethro Tull, Pink Floyd, etc.

Ironically, all three acts I've just named are still around now (although for my money they WERE washed up by the time punk came along).

I liked the Pistols and Clash singles, but they couldn't really do albums. I liked the progressive bands much more, but they mostly did their best work on their first three or four albums and then went stodgy. Mike

I like music from all of the decades in the poll.

I think Punk was hugely refreshing. It changed the way music was "made" for the better, as well as spawning some quality bands.

It suddenly became clear that "anyone" could start a band and make music. It changed the way record labels behaved, to an extent and that was a good thing. It brought music with a conscience much more widely than previous "niches"

There have been fallow periods (for my tastes) in all of the decades, but if I had to pick one decade from the list for as the best, I'd pick the 80s, just.

Still plenty of Punk, Still the best of the 70s bands going, then kind of post punks stuff all the way up to the Stone Roses and Manc music. New Order, Joy Division, Echo & The Bunny Men, the Weddoes - proper indie bands. Talking Heads, REM, Talk Talk, and all that Stuff Paulo likes, Oh and the Magnificent Blue Nile.

the 80s was great, despite all the crap.

[The_Rev]

I voted 90's purely because of all the old classic house tunes i got on me 'puta

You know the best house was from 86-88!