What was/is your favorite decade for music?

[remphish1]

I was born in 1980 but I identify the most with the 90's. The 90's is where/when my musical taste were shapped. The 90's is where I got into all my still current favorite bands! I must admit though I delve into the 80's oftent

 

Bonus question...is there one year in that decade that sticks out for you???

 

1994 for me...just entered high school.

 

Fun/great albums from: Live, Weezer , REM, Phish,Beastie Boys, Soundgarden, Beck, TMBG

[Vacant Horizon]

70s no question. unparalleled in creativity, freedom, analog restrictions, album art etc.

[PopTodd]

From beginning to end: the 70's: punk, post-punk, the end of the Motown era, soul and funk, etc.

 

Although, there is no doubt that the peak of the 60's were pretty much the peak of popular music... The Beatles and the English Invasion, Motown, etc.

[Moss]

The 70's is easily my favorite, from the obscure stuff to the top 40, I pretty much love it all.

[Shug]

"...All the way back in the seventies..." without a doubt, the '70s were the golden era for rock music, especially live rock.

In my time-machine fantasy, it'd be going back to 1970 - 1974 or so, I'd see:

 

Led Zepp and Black Sabbath and The Who in 1970

Rolling Stones in 1972

The Faces pre-1973

Humble Pie in 1973

Dylan and The Band in 1974

Grateful Dead in all those years

and a bunch more I could dream up

 

I grew up in the 80s, which mostly sucked, except for Stevie Ray Vaughan, The Georgia Satellites, Petty, U2 and REM and a handful of others. (Yeah, there is always good music in every decade, but for what I like, the 80s was not a good time, nor was any decade since then)

[Winston Legthigh]

60s: Beatles, British Invasion, Motown, garage rock, psychedelic rock, Hendrix, Byrds, VU...

[Vacant Horizon]

this thread is going pretty much how i thought. i kind of cheat and say the '70s' are basically 67-83. the 80s sound didn't really kick in full throttle til 84 and lasted until 1992. thank goodness for grunge and the alt. rock of the 90s. still, they pale in comparison to the 70s. i have been listening to some of the 80s output from some of my favorite 70s bands (petty, dylan, springsteen). not to bad and kind of nostalgic.

 

i also have fantasized about going back in time to the golden era. first and foremost, i would follow the dead, but would catch every zep, who, pink floyd, yes, sabbath, thin lizzy tour.....the list goes on. i also love the AM pop shit from the 70s!!

[SarahC]

The late 90's boy band stuff is gold...

 

 

I really like late 70's which bleeds into early 80's for the post-punk movement, but when it comes to overall consistency of records I listen to repeatedly, I say that it's from 1965-1975. Golden era for my ears.

[kidsmoke]

The 60's were incredible and I miss that energy. The 70's were about half and half for me...a lot of boring music and truly awful disco (there was some great disco too, but omigawd we had to listen to a lot that was purely horrible) but the 70's allowed a lot of freedom and gave rise to some amazing singer-songwriters. And then the late 70's just broke wide open with punk and stuff that was lumped in with punk (but wasn't at all) and pub bands. Late 70's was glorious! 80's....hmmm, I missed a lot of 80's music, busy with work and small children. I feel like I mostly missed the 80's. Feel free to tell me what I shouldn't have missed. 90's weren't at all bad.

 

I tend to always prefer the decade I'm currently in. New music is always exciting, there are always bands I'm wild about, and I'm always anticipating whatever wonderful stuff is just around the bend. I guess I'm voting for the teens, then (or whatever it is we're calling this decade). Yay for the unexpected new stuff!

[Sweet Papa Crimbo]

The next one...look forward

[ih8music]

I tend to always prefer the decade I'm currently in. New music is always exciting, there are always bands I'm wild about, and I'm always anticipating whatever wonderful stuff is just around the bend. I guess I'm voting for the teens, then (or whatever it is we're calling this decade). Yay for the unexpected new stuff!

 

My thoughts as well. I mean, there's only so many times that I can re-listen to the classics of the past. And while it's exciting to "discover" something great from decades ago that you've never heard before, it's also often a frustrating experience because those bands & artists are almost always long gone.

 

I'd rather follow current artists and get the chance to see them perform live and experience their musical evolution (or not) in real time -- even when I don't necessarily care for the changes. Much more interesting to me as a fan.

 

Now if I were a musician I suppose I might feel differently -- learning from the greats and all -- but I'm not.

[brownie]

Bonus question...is there one year in that decade that sticks out for you???

 

1994 for me...just entered high school.

 

Wow. I am much older than you. 19 years older, in fact!

 

But something about the albums that were released in 1994 really stands out to me. I don't think there has been a year, before or since, that has produced more of my favorite music.

 

I don't have, to hand, right now, what albums I love that were released during that year, but I know there were many. I wish I had the time to sort through them all and name some for you! When and if I have more time I will add more substance to this post. But for now I'll just say that 1994 was a very good year, musically!

 

I am saying this without even a hint of sarcasm.

[Kim Bodnia]

The nineties of course.

 

although i don't have the exact dates, the following CDs were released with very few years/months separating them:

 

R.E.M. / New Adventures in Hi Fi

 

Madonna / Ray of Light

 

Wallflowers / Bringing down the horse

 

U2 / Zooropa

 

Son Volt / Trace

 

Neutral Milk Hotel / Aeroplane

 

There's an ironic story here: I never listened to this music in the nineties, when it came out. Those records I bought them all in 2011, the reason is I was a very busy journalist during the nineties with very little spare time. Only now I'm discovering that great music.

 

I think Suzanne Vega meant a lot to twenty-somethings of the 90s.

[The Inside of Outside]

Tough question. Which means it is a good one. My head tells me the 70s - Who, Stones, Zeppelin, Jam, and on and on. But my heart says the 90s - Jayhawks, early Wilco, some great Neil Young at the start of the decade, Blood Sugar Sex Magik, which blew my mind in the early 90s, Golden Smog, Weller's first solo record and Wildwood, and on and on. So my favorite decade? Give me the 90s.

 

My wife says the answer is obvious - the 80s. Opposites attract, I guess.

[anthony]

The 1990s just barely beats out the 2000s for my top stop.

[Vacant Horizon]

the thing about the 70s is the production. it was warm, phat and easy to listen too. even the hardest rock. the 80s reverbed the shit out of music and the 90s compressed it to shit. i just found the 90s sound to be so harsh on my ears. luckily, of the last decade, bands have rediscovered that warmness in using newer technology. the best examples are wilco (AGIB), neil young, petty, jim orourke. still, some guys just can't get away from it. 'loops on a springsteen record'.

 

i was really really judgmental about music in my 20s. my palate has opened up a bit and i can really enjoy music from any decade and any type (except nu-country and hip hop). each decade has it's own sound that is fresh, but then can get old real fast. disco just infested the 70s. at least it went away. hip hop has infested music and is not going anywhere ever, i don't think. no big deal. i love Rush's 80s albums, minute men, firehose. in the 90s i absolutely loved siamese dream. played that album to death. and of course is it was so great following phish and the alt. country movement in their golden era. i remember anticipating the new son volt (straightaways).

[moxiebean]

I'll bend the rules and say 1975-1985.

[Mr. Heartbreak]

The 60's were incredible and I miss that energy.

Seconded. Big time.

I was born in '64, but songs from that era are still stuck in my consciousness from having gotten radio play even into the early 70s. I am thinking of everything from Baby Love by The Supremes to Light My Fire by The Doors.

As if The Beatles, Stones, FZ, Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs, and the Grateful Dead weren't enough, the early to mid-60s was an absolutely incredible time for jazz, especially on Blue Note and Impulse! Every time I listen to another "new" (to me) record from that era of jazz, I almost inevitably love it.

The 70s could factor in for me if I bent the rules and said 64-74, but for one decade alone, I have to take the 60s...the first half (roughly) for the jazz, and the latter half for all the amazing rock.

[bleedorange]

I think the '80s is the most underrated decade. I'm a new music listener, so I prefer to stay in the present. But I think the 2000s were an incredible decade for music.

[GtrPlyr]

A lot of great stuff from all decades of recorded music, but my overall favorite 10 year stretch would have to be 1965-1974. If had to settle on a specific decade I suppose the '70s would win by a nose as lot of my all-time favorite records came out then: Marquee Moon, There's a Riot Goin' On, Who's Next, Exile on Main St., Nilsson Schmilsson, Blue, Ziggy Stardust, Electric Warrior, Maggot Brain, Third/Radio City/#1Record, Lick My Decals Off, Baby, What's Going On, Blood on the Tracks, On the Beach, New York Dolls, Transformer, Pink Moon, Something/Anything, Jailbreak, Exodus, Labour of Lust... Yep, pretty great decade.

[Vacant Horizon]

didn't Lester Bangs in Almost Famous say that 1974 was the death rattle of rock

[Shug]

The thing about the early 70s that for me make them the greatest time period for rock music ever by a huge landslide (especially if you cheat and include 1969) is that there were so many bands that were on an incredible peak of brilliance all at the same time. You had Led Zeppelin, The Stones, The Who, Black Sabbath, Pink Floyd, The Band, The Allman Brothers, Clapton, etc at the peaks of their creativity and brilliance in performing, recording and composing. For me its just no contest: the early 70s had the greatest rock bands that ever were and likely ever will be at their absolute best. I don't think whatever crazy, amazing, unimaginable social and artisitc circumstances that all came together to make the late 60s and early 70s take place will occur again in a hundred years. I think there were similar eras of magical brilliance for soul and for jazz but I love rock most of all. And of course the 60s had the peaks of The Beatles, Dylan, Byrds, Hendrix and are thus a close second to the 70s for me, but still its the 70s.

 

I also think about how many great albums were made by these bands. Not only did most of those bands have multiple studio albums that commonly appear in lists of the all time greatest rock albums, but they did them consecutively!

 

The Rolling Stones - Let It Bleed, Sticky Fingers, Exile On Main Street

The Who - Tommy, Who's Next, Quadrophenia

Pink Floyd - Meddle, Dark Side Of The Moon, Wish You Were Here

Led Zeppelin - I, II, III, IV, Houses Of The Holy, Physical Graffitti

 

No 80s or 90s band had what I consider a similar run of consecutive masterpieces. And for me, very little from the 80s and 90s has the staying power of the 70s rock. I loved The Joshua Tree and Pearl Jam's Ten when they came out, but they don't sound that great to me now, listening to them now is an exercise in a nostalgia that quickly wears thin, but I never get tired of listening to the 70s masterpieces, they seem like pieces of music that will remain highly regarded for decades.

 

And then there are the live albums of the 70s that are still among the best ever made: Get Yer Ya Yas Out, Live At Leeds, Before The Flood and The Last Waltz (Dylan and the Band), Its Too Late To Stop Now (Van Morrison)

 

I know it all depends on what you like and I love Wilco and The Jayhawks and The Black Crowes and I was a huge fan of U2 and REM in the 80s and I think My Morning Jacket is the best live rock band of the 2000s-2010s, but that is just two or three bands per decade that for me come anywhere near the 70s masters. Of course, that's subjective to my tastes (I don't like anything that has any trace of punk with the exception of the first two records by the Pretenders, and most indie/alternative/grunge does little to exicte me) which are decidedly classic rock, 60s pop and country/soul/blues-based.

 

What I find interesting is there are folks like me who growing up gravitated towards stuff that was before their time and others, understandably, love what was current when they were growing up.

[PopTodd]

When else besides the 70's could this album have been made?

[LouieB]

1920s.

 

LouieB

[froggie]

i love music going all the way back to the '20s... but the 1990s have a soft spot for me