Which has been the best decade for music

Subject: RE: Which has been the best decade for music
From: Zen
Date: 17 Feb 09 - 07:46 AM

With the continuing trend toward "mechanized music" in popular music, the idea that music's best times are ahead is extremely unlikely.

That is certainly a trend but there are still large numbers of enormously talented musicians and composers in all genres who eschew that mechanical or synthetic form and the future could be a very long time (one hopes!). Also the tendancy for dissonance in modern classical music may pass. So I personally remain optimistic that the best could yet be to come.

Zen

Subject: RE: Which has been the best decade for music
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 17 Feb 09 - 01:09 PM

In terms of rock music(in its widest sense), one could say that the 60s must come out top because if we took a snapshot of rock at the beginning of the decade and then at the end, well, the development was truly breathtaking. For classical music,I would pick the 1830s with Liszt, Chopin and Paganini - for starters!

Subject: RE: Which has been the best decade for music
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 17 Feb 09 - 02:11 PM

My choice would be the 1950s. It was a period of the most eclectic, wide availability of music. (I am excluding classical and academic music for this discussion)

The '50s saw a maturation of Jazz--BeBop, Cool, Straight Ahead; Big Band Swing in it's demise; Honky-Tonk country music; Crooners and their female counterparts; Black Rhythm and Blues; and the nascent Folk Scare period; and some of the best Broadway music ever.

For Film music only, I would choose 1930s Warner Bros. film music.

Subject: RE: Which has been the best decade for music
From: Ron Davies
Date: 18 Feb 09 - 12:29 AM

Problem is: the music business is in fact a business--and the big sales are in the dehumanized "music". We have even more manufactured "stars" than ever, imitating whoever was popular last year---thanks to cultural phenomena like American Idol ( in the US), modeled after a UK program, I think.

And the main alternative seems to be rap.

I'll admit that Carrie Underwood seems to actually deserve her stardom--and that some of the new "country" singers do some good stuff (while not country).   But what Joni Mitchell talked about as the "star-making machine" is way out of control now.

There may be lots of talented composers and songwriters now who still believe in the human element. But when you talk about "best decade for music", you pretty well have to talk about the prominent figures--otherwise what are your criteria? These talented composers and songwriters are the underground, it seems. And not likely to get more exposure.

I listened to the top 50 of 2008 (videos included, as seems common these days), as determined by AOL or some other corporate entity. A cultural toxic waste dump. You're lucky to be able to understand the words--or maybe unlucky when you do.

And don't give me the garbage that that's what they said about rock when it first arrived. At least it often had a sense of humor--e.g. Lieber and Stoller.   And people had to actually be able to play their instruments--it wasn't a bath of synthesizers.

Hard to believe anybody will ever be nostalgic for any of the current offerings.

It's time for a major revolt against the studio-dependent stuff which seems to rule the "charts" these days.   People should be able to play and sing without needing an army or an industry back them up.

But as long as it sells, ain't gonna happen.

Subject: RE: Which has been the best decade for music
From: Ron Davies
Date: 18 Feb 09 - 12:33 AM

And perhaps the quality of current pop music has something to do with the precipitous plunge in CD sales in recent years---of course along with the ability to cherry-pick like never before, thanks to i-Tunes and imitators--if not to get the music totally free.

Subject: RE: Which has been the best decade for music
From: SPB-Cooperator
Date: 18 Feb 09 - 10:44 AM

On the basis of what I was lisntening to at the time.


1st half of 70s was the best half-decade for popular music
2nd half of 70s ditto progressive music
80s folk music
90s political music

Subject: RE: Which has been the best decade for music
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 18 Feb 09 - 10:45 AM

Ron, I pretty much agree with you about the music business, not so much about getting music free--if that's what you meant--but certainly about the 'dehumanizing of it.

My definition of dehumanizing the music is 'laying tracks' instead of singing with the musicians or other other singers. Sometimes it works, but mostly the sound is so artificial that performers have to lip-sync live performances, or perhaps sing live (?) to prerecorded instrumentation, because the sound on the CD cannot be recreated on stage. Of course, then we have the carping about did Hit Singer cheat the audience by lipsycing, etc.

But the thing I hate the most is performs singing 'duets' with long dead singers. It's not only creepy, it makes me think they have no creative edge of their own.