What Was The Best Decade For Music In History?

[mudwhistle]

1. The 50s
2. The 60s
3. The 70s
4. The 80s
5. The 90s
6. 2000-2010
7. 2010-2020
8. Classical Music

Which one of the above was the best decade/period in history for Rock & Roll, Pop Music, or just music in general.
Take into consideration innovation....originality....artistry...or ingenuity.

I believe the 80s was the greatest when it came to popular culture. The Classical period was the most influential....but the 80s changed America.

If you vote....please post at least a short comment.

 

[JackOfNoTrades]

I still think the 70's top to bottom was the best decade for music. Mostly because it was a wide variety that ran the gamut between easy listening (AM Radio), pop, disco, and the continued emergence of rock and roll,. Looking back on it, literally something for just about everyone's taste. The 80's are a sentimental favorite of mine (because my teenaged years started in the 80's), but while the music started out as influential, it ended up in a tangled mess of hairspray, makeup, and leather. Then, the grunge bands of 1991 pretty much put an end to hair metal...just about overnight.

 

[Auld Phart]

40s

 

[Pogo]

1. The 50s
2. The 60s
3. The 70s
4. The 80s
5. The 90s
6. 2000-2010
7. 2010-2020
8. Classical Music

Which one of the above was the best decade/period in history for Rock & Roll, Pop Music, or just music in general.
Take into consideration innovation....originality....artistry...or ingenuity.

I believe the 80s was the greatest when it came to popular culture. The Classical period was the most influential....but the 80s changed America.

If you vote....please post at least a short comment.

"Classical" is bigly vague. "Classical" what? It's an adjective. Sometimes it means "classic rock". Sometimes it means "dead white European males of the 17th-19th centuries".

In any case it is, to choose another adjective, amusing to read the concept that "all recorded history" dates back all the way to no further than "the 1950s", as if the world were invented at, I dunno, the 1939 World's Fair.

Given a list of this limited scope I would have gone for the 1930s.... recording technology was greatly improving and the record companies hadn't yet slavishly slotted everything into genres, simply putting out MUSIC on its own merits. And the field was W I D E open -- it would be another decade before Marketing started constraining the art by narrowing those veins like cardiovascular disease.

Second choice would likely be the '20s and/or a decade before that, wherein the foundations of what we now call Blues and Jazz respectively, which were and are the essential building blocks of so much that came later, including the "pop" and "rock" categories listed. Then going a bit further back to the turn of the century as the precursor to those, particularly jazz (called "the American Classical Music"), you had "ragtime" introducing the African idea of syncopation into the staid marchy paradigm of the European tradition where it hadn't existed. In Brazil you had the chôro doing the same thing. Those are all building blocks to the present, and YUGELY important ones.

 

[the other mike]

For the wide variety of creativity and ingenuity
it's the 70's. You can make pretty good arguments for the 60's and 80's
but I'll stick with my guns here.

 

[Indeependent]

1960s For melodies and great solos.
Also the 1970s. you limited it to 1 decade.
The 1980s died by late 1985 with the Rap invasion.
I prefer melodies over slashers.

 

[JackOfNoTrades]

40s

Just think. No TV. No videos. Just a giant radio. World in the middle of a great war.

 

[Taharka]

It was betta befoe white peepa stoe black peepa music.

 

[Pogo]

40s

Just think. No TV. No videos. Just a giant radio. World in the middle of a great war.

Actually there were music videos in the 1940s. They were called Soundies.

​

 

[evenflow1969]

1. The 50s
2. The 60s
3. The 70s
4. The 80s
5. The 90s
6. 2000-2010
7. 2010-2020
8. Classical Music

Which one of the above was the best decade/period in history for Rock & Roll, Pop Music, or just music in general.
Take into consideration innovation....originality....artistry...or ingenuity.

I believe the 80s was the greatest when it came to popular culture. The Classical period was the most influential....but the 80s changed America.

If you vote....please post at least a short comment.

I think Angelo hit it on the head the seventies creativity and original sounds separate it from the other decades. I can remember just being blown away by Fly like an eagle. I had never heard such a dramatically different sound. The eighties the record companies had to much control and limited the sound to much.

 

[MarathonMike]

1. The 50s
2. The 60s
3. The 70s
4. The 80s
5. The 90s
6. 2000-2010
7. 2010-2020
8. Classical Music

Which one of the above was the best decade/period in history for Rock & Roll, Pop Music, or just music in general.
Take into consideration innovation....originality....artistry...or ingenuity.

I believe the 80s was the greatest when it came to popular culture. The Classical period was the most influential....but the 80s changed America.

If you vote....please post at least a short comment.

"Classical" is bigly vague. "Classical" what? It's an adjective. Sometimes it means "classic rock". Sometimes it means "dead white European males of the 17th-19th centuries".

In any case it is, to choose another adjective, amusing to read the concept that "all recorded history" dates back all the way to no further than "the 1950s", as if the world were invented at, I dunno, the 1939 World's Fair.

Given a list of this limited scope I would have gone for the 1930s.... recording technology was greatly improving and the record companies hadn't yet slavishly slotted everything into genres, simply putting out MUSIC on its own merits. And the field was W I D E open -- it would be another decade before Marketing started constraining the art by narrowing those veins like cardiovascular disease.

Second choice would likely be the '20s and/or a decade before that, wherein the foundations of what we now call Blues and Jazz respectively, which were and are the essential building blocks of so much that came later, including the "pop" and "rock" categories listed. Then going a bit further back to the turn of the century as the precursor to those, particularly jazz (called "the American Classical Music"), you had "ragtime" introducing the African idea of syncopation into the staid marchy paradigm of the European tradition where it hadn't existed. In Brazil you had the chôro doing the same thing. Those are all building blocks to the present, and YUGELY important ones.

Exactly what I was going to say. The 20s and 30s laid the foundation for most of the popular music we hear today.

 

[Pogo]

1. The 50s
2. The 60s
3. The 70s
4. The 80s
5. The 90s
6. 2000-2010
7. 2010-2020
8. Classical Music

Which one of the above was the best decade/period in history for Rock & Roll, Pop Music, or just music in general.
Take into consideration innovation....originality....artistry...or ingenuity.

I believe the 80s was the greatest when it came to popular culture. The Classical period was the most influential....but the 80s changed America.

If you vote....please post at least a short comment.

"Classical" is bigly vague. "Classical" what? It's an adjective. Sometimes it means "classic rock". Sometimes it means "dead white European males of the 17th-19th centuries".

In any case it is, to choose another adjective, amusing to read the concept that "all recorded history" dates back all the way to no further than "the 1950s", as if the world were invented at, I dunno, the 1939 World's Fair.

Given a list of this limited scope I would have gone for the 1930s.... recording technology was greatly improving and the record companies hadn't yet slavishly slotted everything into genres, simply putting out MUSIC on its own merits. And the field was W I D E open -- it would be another decade before Marketing started constraining the art by narrowing those veins like cardiovascular disease.

Second choice would likely be the '20s and/or a decade before that, wherein the foundations of what we now call Blues and Jazz respectively, which were and are the essential building blocks of so much that came later, including the "pop" and "rock" categories listed. Then going a bit further back to the turn of the century as the precursor to those, particularly jazz (called "the American Classical Music"), you had "ragtime" introducing the African idea of syncopation into the staid marchy paradigm of the European tradition where it hadn't existed. In Brazil you had the chôro doing the same thing. Those are all building blocks to the present, and YUGELY important ones.

Exactly what I was going to say. The 20s and 30s laid the foundation for most of the popular music we hear today.

Sometimes we forget where our culture comes from. The other day somebody at work was playing some rockenroll video from the early 1960s -- I don't remember what the song was but it was a live show with an audience, and I immediately noticed how the audience were all clapping on the "wrong" beat --- the one/three instead of the two/four. Nobody else had noticed. Some of these African elements took half a century to break out.

 

[Blues Man]

I have to go with the 70's but I'll include the last half of the 60's and the first part of the 80's

Of course Disco is excluded

 

[mudwhistle]

1960s For melodies and great solos.
Also the 1970s. you limited it to 1 decade.
The 1980s died by late 1985 with the Rap invasion.
I prefer melodies over slashers.

I think the greatest change was during the 80s.
Music went from something you listened to on the radio to something you watched on Friday night until Saturday morning.
Music videos was essentially the hay-day for musicians.
Now that is all gone.

 

[Mr Natural]

Having grown up in the '60s with The Beatles, and The Stones, and The Who et al, I voted the '60s.

But as far as actual musicianship goes, the '40s with the Big Bands would be number one by far.

 

[Papageorgio]

70’s was the best decade for music.

 

[Auld Phart]

40s

I've always enjoyed the Big Band sound.

Glenn Miller. Cab Calloway, Count Basie, Benny Goodman, Duchin, etc

 

[rightwinger]

60s by far mostly the period 1966-71

There are still radio stations dedicated to Classic Rock and 60s music permeates our popular culture

 

[wamose]

Having grown up ion the '60s with The Beatles, and The Stones, and The Who et al, I voted the '60s.

But as far as actual musicianship goes, the '40s with the Big Bands would be number one by far.

I'm with you on the sixties. You can also add in most of the original oldies, the Jackson 5, Led Zeppelin, the whole Motown thing which was huge and Woodstock for good measure. I like it all except rap. I just don't get that.

 

[iamwhatiseem]

For me, it isn't a single decade.... rather a period that spanned 2.
And that is the 1960s through the 1970's.
Right now, on radio stations across the radio/streaming spectrum - classic rock continues to be among the most popular. And not just by folks in their 50s and above. But folks in their 20s and 30s also listen to music from this period.
The exception is of course the brief Disco craze. It came and went with equal speed, and only a handful of those songs you will ever hear again.
The 1980s is probably the worst. And to note - that is when I was a teenager.
The 80s and 90s alike were plagued by "corporate bands". Plagued by MTV. Some of the worst bands that were HUGE back then - you never hear anymore. There is a reason for that. It sucked.