Which decade had the worst music?

[Kontiki]

Gotta go with che on this one - the 70s easily has the worst music, much like it has the worst of everything artistically and aesthetically. There was some great stuff too, so it might not be the worst on balance, but the bad was truly awful.

As a whole, this decade is shaping up pretty poorly so far. Are you a tatooed and pierced faux-angry white middle American suburban teen? How fast can we sign you to a record contract?

[MRT144]

are you a dumb southern black man who can do rhyming couplets while the song only actually contains a total of 10 words?

[SlowwHand]

Are we talking rap crap now?

[MRT144]

modern day rap is horrible. if you didnt like it back in the late 80s early 90s then dont even attempt to listen to this ****

[Barnabas]

I think in this decade, it is the first time we see completely talentless people as music stars.

Maybe in the past, like Madonna in the 80´s, people would say her voice is completely average, or only slightly better than average.

But with Ashley Simpson, Lindsay Lohan and H duff (Paris Hilton!!!), I think they are below the world average in musical talent.

How can this happen I wonder! (I think it all started with Janet Jackson, her voice is sooo tiny, and all she had was being Michaels sister)

[SlowwHand]

Well, in her later times she had a boob.

[Drake Tungsten]

Pearl Jam was/is grunge, Japher.

Pearl Jam certainly isn't grunge now. They've been a generic hard rock band since at least the No Code album, more akin to Neil Young than Mudhoney.

Whether they were grunge to begin with or not really depends on your definition of a very vague term. They got lumped into the grunge movement by the mainstream media, which used the term for pretty much any band coming out of Seattle at the time regardless of whether they really fit the bill (Soundgarden is another good example). Some people in the Seattle indie scene (including Kurt Cobain) really disliked Pearl Jam, however, and thought they were just attempting to cash-in on the popularity built by legit Seattle bands. It's up for question how many grunge bands and fans at the time would have named Pearl Jam as one of their own. I've got a friend from Seattle who is quite adamant that they weren't...

[Drake Tungsten]

As for the thread topic, I'm going to go with the '60's. Sure, it had the Beatles and the Stone, but every decade has it's high points (present decade excluded, but I'll refrain from judgement until all ten years have passed). So, following che's lead, I decided to make my decision based on the low points of the decade. And you can't get much lower than psychedelia. At least disco was danceable...

Innumerable ****ty covers of American blues classics by pasty British kids didn't help the 60's either. I liked the British Invasion a lot more before I actually started listening to the albums.

[Dis]

Originally posted by Frozzy


True, but I still dont really get into much 60s stuff, despite its obvious influence.

I like the late 60's stuff. It's what made Vietnam war movies good. .

But it wasn't until real late 60's things started to get heavy. Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Hendrix, Joplin. And don't forget the Doors. Not exactly heavy, but cool nonetheless.

[Cort Haus]

The only soul music I like is from the 60's. Since then, it's gone steadily downhill IMO. As for Rap -it isn't music, it's poetry.

Also, MRT is right that having a moog in the mix or a drum machine doesn't make something electronic, however patronising Molly tries to get.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by MRT144


my definition of electronic music is music created solely or mostly with synthesizers or sampling. it would also not exsist unless these methods of reation were present. in this broad defiinition ive eliminated many of the people mentoned.

No surprise there!


MRT144: 'Electronic music is what I say it is, and popular means whatever I want it to mean.'



I prefer this guy, who actually knows what he's talking about:

"Electronic music is a medium of expression, not a specific type of music" Robert Moog

Breaking news, P.V.S. resident- 'Switched On Bach' was indeed popular, and Walter Carlos's music proved so popular, it was even used in the soundtrack to 'A Clockwork Orange'- another film and soundtrack 'popular' with the masses.


Ditto Kraftwerk and Tangerine Dream- here's Afrika Bambaataa on the influence of Kraftwerk on his music:

" I don't think they even knew how big they were among the black masses back in 1977, when they came out with 'Trans-Europe Express'. When that came out, I thought that was one of the best and weirdest records I ever heard in my life.'"

Afrika Bambaataa, quoted in David Toop's 'Rap Attack'.




The Human League, 'Being Boiled/Circus Of Death' 1978 :

'I remember hearing 'Being Boiled' by the Human League about a quarter of a century ago - a mix up of glam Sheffield steel, Dali melt, Fausty distortion, Meek DIY sound effects, dinky Kraftwerk electronics and the deadest of pans (it advocated a ban on the cruel abuse of silk worms) and Johnny Rotten dismissed the group as 'trendy hippies'. I felt that this was the sound of the future, and hoped that by, say, the year 2003, songs like this were filling the charts. In some ways that prediction might be coming true. '

PAUL MORLEY - rock journalist and former ZTT operative - naming 'Being Boiled' as the song that changed his life (January 2003 - The Guardian)

Tangerine Dream and their ever-so-slightly popular 'Phaedra':

Chris Franke used part of the Virgin advance to buy a Moog modular synth he'd been practising on at the Hansa recording studios (see 'The 800,000 Mark Synth' side panel). "I bought it for a mere $15,000, an incredibly low price." It made a difference, for the following album, Phaedra, was a triumph of sequenced rhythm and electronic washes. The new LP flew up the charts on its release in February 1974, and went gold in seven countries. Froese's memories of the recording session are still fascinating: "We started in November 1973. Before, we had improvised, but now many things had to be structured, because of the Moog with its driving bass notes. Tuning the instrument took several hours each day, because in those days there were no presets or memory banks. By the 11th day, we only had six and a half minutes of music on tape. Technically, everything went wrong -- the tape machine broke down, there were repeated mixing console failures, and the speakers were damaged, because of the unusually low frequencies of the bass notes. After a two-day break in the country, things improved. 'Mysterious Semblance' was recorded in one take on a double-keyboarded Mellotron while my wife Monique turned the knobs on the phasing device. Even 'Phaedra' was done in one go. Chris had pressed the button to start the bubbling bass note, but it wasn't right, so after a while the bass drops out. Then he started tuning the bass note while he was running it, and all the time, the engineer was recording. So what you hear today was in fact a rehearsal!"

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/1994_articles/dec94/tangerinedream.html

Gold in 7 countries. Not bad in 1974, when gold record sales really meant something.


Kraftwerk's 'Autobahn':

The same simple bassline conjuring the image of driving along the Autobahn on a lovely spring afternoon. The synthesizer work is really quite brilliant.

Kraftwerk have become one of the most important new acts to be released so far this year.

It's simple electronic music, totally in control, unemotional and detached. It's the kind of music you can put on in the background and forget about. I would imagine it would be an excellent cure for insomnia, as it sends you off into a lovely dreaming trance.

Janis Schact, Circus, 6/75.


Of course Kraftwerk made the electronica theme even more explicit on 'Radioaktivitat', with tracks entitled 'Ohm Sweet Ohm', 'Antenna' and 'Geiger Counter'.



Brian Eno's ambient music:

The method for creating 'Discreet Music' (the track, not the album -- more on that in a moment) was probably more complex than I understand it to be, but the underlying concept was to put simple melodic lines from a synthesizer through a graphic equalizer and echo unit and then slowly tinker with the timbre and delay of the melodies over the course of one half-hour.

Not exactly the kind of thing Mr. White was asking from Jimmy in That Thing You Do!, but at least a segment of the mid-'70s audience was hip enough to recognize it for a major innovation. And if the title track was the element most responsible for such plaudits, it sadly came at the expense of the rest of the album, "Three Variations on the Canon in D Major by Johann Pachelbel," the warmth to the lovely chill of the album's first half. Giving snatches of "Canon" to string players and monkeying with the tempi and alignment of the parts, Eno makes music just as calm and beautiful as 'Discreet Music', but with none of the electronic wizardry that so many of his disciples would hide behind when they were out of ideas. That Eno was about to be cited as a major influence on the punk explosion while producing music this radically placid is just one more reminder of the man's exemplary willingness to sacrifice popularity in favor of fresh avenues of expression.

http://www.popmatters.com/music/reviews/e/enobrian-discreetmusic.shtml

(Psst- Original Release Date: December 1, 1975 )


I could also list Can, Klaus Schulze, Suicide, Popol Vuh, Weather Report, Vangelis, Ultravox, Throbbing Gristle, Cabaret Voltaire....


Of course they were making electronic music before you were even born.

So until you actually show signs of knowing wtfyta, why don't you take your own advice, and stfu ?

Also, MRT is right that having a moog in the mix or a drum machine doesn't make something electronic, however patronising Molly tries to get.

Cort Haus


Oh, I'm so sorry, there I was thinking that having seen groups like the early Human League, Cabaret Voltaire, Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream et al, in the 70s, and having been collecting their records since then, I might just know rather more than MRT144 on the subject.


Clearly, I should imagine popular electronic music begins with Depeche Mode and Yazoo....

[Provost Harrison]

Actually I think some of you may have a point - out of all the eras I have found that the 00s have had the least great bands compared to the number of sh*t ones...I just hope it isn't a sign of my age though, and I do try and keep an eye out on what is around musically...

[MRT144]

whatever molly, youre a hopeless case. im sorry that genres of electronic music like "house" and "techno" and "jungle" and "electro" dont mean anything to you.

youre just hopeless.

[Mrs. Tuberski]

this is kind of hard in response to the 60s beating out the 90s. i love elvis presely and he was in the 60s more with del shannon and stuff.
so in order from favorite its
70s
80s
60s
90s
and to round off the worst 00s
and im 37 grew up listening to music in the 80s for my self but loved the music my parents played when i was younger in the 70s

[Method]

I have to say the 80s probably, although there's no shortage of stuff i like from from that decade (Rush, thrash and heavy metal). Metal just kept getting better from there though, so the 90s and the current decade are better for that reason. Current prog rock bands like porcupine tree, or dream theater keep my interest in modern music.

The best decade is an easy choice. Everyone knows rock music acheived perfection in 1974.