Music by the decade

Every decade has had a big impact on music. The 60s saw the explosion of rock 'n' roll. The 70s developed almost every genre of music, an important decade for rock, disco, jazz and metal, as well as many others. The 80s saw the birth of the pop music we know today, as well as developing metal even more. The 90s saw grunge, and an increase in popularity for alt. rock and a lot more hip hop. The 00s has been almost as broad as the 70s I think, there's been something new for so many genres.

But the question is, which is your favourite decade? Each has it's own distinctive array of musicians and genres, but which is the most popular?

For me it goes, 70s > 00s > 60s > 80s > 90s. I love a lot of the rock music from the 70s so that was a certain first choice. The 00s has been so broad with so many inventive new bands that it had to come second. The 60s had a lot of good rock music as well, but it was a tougher choice because I like a lot of the 80s post-punk and "alternative" bands. I hardly like any bands from the 90s, so that was easy to put last.

Your turn.

I like the music from the late 1990s/early 2000s. That was when Linkin Park had the best songs. I also like some 80s music, but I can't think of any songs from there that I like from the top of my head at the moment.

I would say the 60s and 70s are my two favorite decades of music. Just about every favorite band/artist of mine comes from those two decades which would be The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Jefferson Airplane, The Doors, The Velvet Underground, Pink Floyd, The Who, Kansas, Queen, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Elton John, Eagles, The Kinks, The Supremes, The Cure, etc. I just really love rock n' roll and the whole British invasion period which kind of bleeds into the early 70s. So seeing as two decades covers a lot of time and a lot of artists it's really hard to pinpoint why I like those two decades in particular besides the reasons I've already mentioned.

The 80s would have to be my next choice. It might sound like an odd choice though because the only band from this time that I consider one of my favorites is the Beastie Boys. Besides that, there isn't one other band that I can think of that I care for. What made me pick the 80s to be so high up on the list was the number of one hit wonders that came out during this time that I love. Songs like 99 Balloons, The Safety Dance, Take on Me, Here in my Car, and Come on Eileen are some of my all time favorite songs that I can listen to anytime.

The 90s and 00s are kind of weird for me. There are only a few bands/artists from this time I can say I really like. The only bands I can think of are The Smashing Pumpkins, Gorillaz, MGMT, Daft Punk, The Flaming Lips, and Blur. For me it's sort of like there was so much bad music I didn't care for during those two decades that it kind of outweighed all the good music I do like. Especially recently it seems like hip hop and pop are sort of coming together and the sound you get from both of them combined just doesn't appeal to me. Although Muse and Kings of Leon are rather recent and not so bad so I can tolerate all the other stuff. I've recently come across Florence + the Machine too and they're not so bad either, so yeah.

i'm not so keen on musical periods, and despite having artists from all over the timeline i'm unable to associate them all with their decades and it's not something i care to look into >~> just bein honest. so i don't have much grounds to pick a favorite decade, but my nostalgic bias is pointing me towards the 90's.

Well i like music from the 80's. Especially 80's pop. The music back then had a lot more meaning than this piece of $%!^ today we call hip hop.

It seems a little naive me saying that my favourite decade of music is the noughties (00's), but it would have to be true. I definitely appreciate old music and don't discriminate against music based on the year it was made, but just the sheer number of different styles that have come out of this decade and the quality of the music being made if you look past what's on the radio - it's just amazing.

Think about it, the decade starts with some great 90s bands like At The Drive-in and Rage Against the Machine still going, the beginning of the White Stripes (well, really 1999 but you get the idea, 2000 is a close enough estimate as they were around then), Explosions In The Sky (playing a whole new style of music). Then you have the beginning of Broken Social Scene and the Canadian indie scene starting up, Metric's earlier stuff, The Strokes - which brought back garage rock in a new style and made lo-fi popular (and in the opinion of some people saved rock and roll). The Black Keys come in soon with their ground-breaking two piece blues/rock combination (admittedly influenced by Junior Kimsbrough and R.L. Burnside but still a very distinct new sound), The Libertines came out. More acoustic music like Kaki King and Jack Johnson emerged, hardcore music developed with bands like I Killed the Prom Queen, The Kills came out (drum machine songs made a comeback around this time), Love of Diagrams began in Melbourne and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs began. Bass guitar and drum two-piece bands started cropping up (Death From Above 1979 for instance), and of course The Edmund Fitzgerald, which completely defined a whole genre of music for me and a bunch of other people using disjointed rhythms to make math rock. New wave sounds and synth pop made a comeback, bands like Foals and Wolf Parade came out. A new type of folk music was coming out (ie. not Bob Dylan Folk), as well as bands like Beach House who blended electronic sounds with folk music. Bands like Sonic Youth and Blonde Redhead are still pumping out music. A whole branch of different sounds unique to individual bands were coming out, such as My Disco's minimalist tunes, I Heart Hiroshima's bass-less line up (two guitars and drums) and even mixes of jazz and classical sounding piano with elements of math-rock and fusion (Mouse On The Keys). Some cool pop music came out like Phoenix, some awesome math-rock from Japan (see Lite or Toe). Experimental electro like Crystal Castles comes from the 00's, as does the post-hardcore sound from bands like Die! Die! Die!, La Dispute and previously mentioned Love of Diagrams. And of course, the beach/surf sounding lo-fi indie currently coming from New York, with amazing bands like Beach Fossils, Vivian Girls, The Babies and Real Estate. There's just so many amazing bands and new genres that came from that era (and continued through that era) that you just can't say no to.

tl;dr: The 2000s had an explosion of new and unique sounds and a load of great new bands providing you listened past what's on the radio.

If I was going to put the decades in order, it would go like this:

00s > 80s (no wave, grunge, new wave) > 60s (The Kinks, Hendrix, enough said) > 90s (some awesome music from the 90s but not enough to rank it highly) > 70s (like the 90s, great music but I don't listen to enough of it to rank it highly)

Also, I'd like to mention the 30s, 40s and 50s, which had some really great blues music from the likes of Son House, Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters just as examples.

The 80's for me, So much beautiful and meanful songs unlike most of the ones now-a-days.

70's is easily the best decade if not for quite possibly the two most powerful albums ever.

1971: The Dark Side of the Moon
1979: The Wall

Pink Floyd started and ended the 70's :)

EDIT: However, the indie scene of the mid 2000's (such as the likes of The Unicorns, Arctic Monkeys, Broken Social Scene) and more recently the late 2000's (Girls, Harlem, and all the other indie garage rock) is pretty awesome.

But the late 80's early 90's were amazing too because of bands like Dinosaur Jr., Pixies, Flaming Lips, and Butthole Surfers.

Heh, in summary, I can't decide :P