What decade's music sucked worst?

[Bossy Monkey]

I submit the 80s. Even without getting into the hair bands and Madonna and other wondrous MTV-generated phenomena, the over emphasis on really silly synthesizer work makes even the movies of that decade all but unwatchable now. Then again, it may just be a matter of familiarity breeding contempt, as that's the decade I'm most familiar with. Whuddayoothink?

[Dookus]

1. I thought nothing could beat the '80's...

for badness... then I lived through the '90's.

You know the biggest selling artist of the '90s?

Mariah Carey.

Yeah, Mariah fuckin' Carey.

Who else ya got? Nirvana? Good enough. Not great. Tupac? Better in death than alive.

Yeah, Mariah fuckin' Cary.

[ForrestGump]

12. I'm with you

Would've voted the '80s, but then the '90s happened and it got even worse.

[Dookus]

13. I knew I respected you...

but I never knew why.

I remember LIVING through the '70's and bemoaning the music. We used to say the '40's had Sinatra, the '50's had Elvis, the 60's ahd the Beatles and the Stones. Who do the '70's have?

Well, it turns out they have 10 times the artists the '80's have. And the '80's have 5 times the artists the '90's have.

[ForrestGump]

16. Well, it's morning now and I'm gad that you still respect me

Yeah...your theory of chronologically increasing returns holds true for me, too. I certainly find more palatable stuff from the '80s that used to make me gag, solely because -- by comparison to what sits at the tops of the charts now (actually, these days few songs other than remixes of 1968 Elvis movie songs stay at #1 for two weeks or more) -- thpse '80s pop confectiosn are masterpieces. And the '70s really did produce some excellent pop-rock material and performances, even without the influences of nostalgia and anachronistic relativity.

[Dookus]

18. I have no evidence...

but I'd bet that Queen still outsells Pearl Jam.

[tinanator]

2. awright, lay off the synths

like any other instrument they are only as good as the fool pulling the triggers. I think your aggravation stems from the colder computerized efforts that were marked by Madonna's rise with FM DX-7 computer sequenced nonsense and all the who gives a shit as long as it gets rotation MTV nightmare assault on our musical culture. The 80's were all about that but also a lot of very serious live stuff was happening throughout the decade. 20 years later there are no excuses left, and the garbage is up to our ears. Still some interesting things happening, but they tend towards fairly retro.
Real synthesizers are wonderful things. Bad composers and marketing demons are the eternal problem.

[Bossy Monkey]

3. I blame Harold Faltermayer

(which, by the way would be a kickass name for a band!)

[ForrestGump]

14. Absolutely hated the synth-dominated '80s new-wave and new-romantic

stuff. Seemed so soulless and sterile, and sometimes all that with the worst kind of 'wall of sound' effect. Of course, in my opinion much of the '80s pop catalog would've been equally soulless even with slide guitar backing and "Shaft" wah-wah effects.

My answer to "Do You Really Want To Hurt Me" was, I think quite reasonably, "Yes, Very Much So."

And, yes, then it all got worse as we fell into the '90s, with the electric drum kits, sampling, and all the nonmusical adventures that gave us much of rap and other output that highlighted bands who didn't (couldn't?) actually play their instruments and singers with vocals so processed (Don Johnson and other TV types being just the most obvious of them) that they bear no resemblance to the alleged singer's actual voice.

I want that old-time rock 'n' roll.

[ACK]

22. Listening to the wrong 80's music

Try U2, REM, Husker Du, The Replacements, the Minutemen, The Talking Heads, Black Flag, the Dead Kennedy's, the Cure and the Pixies.

_

[ForrestGump]

23. Listened to the first two (some good stuff, but not blown away)

and none of the others listed ever held any appeal. Hated punk when it first appeared, and that's one feeling that hasn't modified since, and the Talking Heads always made me nauseous.

Some of the best music in the '80s, I think, came from the country side of things...but that soon took a bit of a nosedive, too. It's not that the decade lacked entirely, but there was an awful lot of dross and, though that may well be true of every decade, even much of the good stuff was not all that good. At least there was a definable single pop icon for the decade -- Michael Jackson. I can't think of one that stood out in the same way in the '90s. And so far the '00s are looking pretty dire...Britney? Clay Aiken? J Lo?

[Donkeyboy75]

25. and The Pretenders, Camper van Beethoven and The Misfits

well, OK, The Misfits were also in the late 70s

[ProfessorGAC]

36. What He Said! Lay Off The Synths

I've been a synth player since 1972, and now my feelings are hurt, and my keyboards are pissed!
The Professor

[Bossy Monkey]

39. (Slapping head): I KNEW I should have said "present company excepted" n/t

[Gothic Sponge]

4. I think this decade so far sucks

[SideshowScott]

5. I Would say the 80's But there were ALOT of great bands that came out

Yes MTV ruled the mainstream with crap and hairbands in the 80's BUT there was great music that came out of the decade that was on par with any music in the past..Like Talking heads, R.E.M., The Cure, Peter Gabriel, Paul Simon's classic Graceland, U2, and others that came out that we still love today..
If anything the Music after Grunge died has been nothing but crap!
Honestly had any record that has been relased in the past 10 years been any good??? ( I know there are some but they are few and VERY far between )

[Rhiannon12866]

6. I agreed wholeheartedly when I just read your subject line

The '80s was a total waste. The '60s comprised the Beatles and the Stones and many others which beget them and the '90s began a type of resurrection of music, but the '80s was just totally lost. That's IMHO, anyway.:shrug:

[shawmut]

7. No contest.

The 80's. :puke:



I will say, though, that this decade is shaping up to be even worse.

[Leilani]

8. Who voted for the 70 s?

Some of the music was amazing!!!!!

[shawmut]

9. I was wondering the same thing

:wtf:

[TheWizardOfMudd]

10. The "Underground" Bands Of The Eighties Were Awesome

You just had to know where to find them.

REM
Stray Cats
Guadalcanal Diary
Ramones
U2
B52's
Husker Du
Morrisey
Devo
The Romantics
The Dead Milkmen
The Dead Kennedys
Plimsouls
The Producers
Gang Of Four
The Police
Black Flag
The Sex Pistols
The Cure
The Replacements
Dinosaur Jr.
Echo & The Bunny Men
Sonic Youth
The Pixies . . . .


I could go on and on! The hair bands and over-synthesized crap were pop pulp anomalies and didn't reflect the true artistic presentations of the time.

[Beware the Beast Man]

26. Agreed-

Mainstream 80's music was terrible, but the punk, hardcore, metal, industrial and so-called alternative underground scenes were thriving.

[MrSlayer]

11. I think the POP music from every decade sucks but the 90's were horrid.

All the whiny, pussified, woe is me bullshit. God the 90's sucked. Very little was good about the decade except the expansion of the U.S. Death Metal scene and the Scandinavian Neo-Thrash and Black revival.

[Nostradammit]

15. The 80's - BUT

only worse than the 90's by.00001%.

at least by the 90's the drum machines had groove quantize functions so the time wasn't so ram-rod up your ass straight.

[Gothic Sponge]

17. Why would anyone vote for the 70's?

I think the 60's and 70's were the best.

[Dookus]

20. Why the '70's?

Bowie... Springsteen... Queen... Led Zeppelin... LaBelle... Gibbs... Lennon... Frampton... Meatloaf...


That's a lifetime of enjoyable music.

[ACK]

21. One word man -- Disco

Need another?

Captain and Tennille

Need another?

The Jackson Five

Need some more? Got a lot of them.

_

[Jeff in Cincinnati]

28. Starland Vocal Band

'nuff said

[Whitacre D_WI]

19. Every decade you mention had great music. All of them had shit, too.

It's just that we better remember HOW MUCH shit we've heard more recently. I mean, yeah, there are a handful of songs from the '50s and '60s we remember as being awful simply because they were SO BAD.

But the '70s saw the rise of corporate rock and AOR, the '80s saw synth-pop begin its domination, and the '90s were just a few years ago -- so we well remember how crappy that music was!

The music from the '60s was no better or worse than the music of the '90s -- we just REMEMBER it being better. And memory is about as trustworthy as a Bush* speech.

[Bossy Monkey]

24. I'm sort of stunned that nobody's gone for either the 50s or 60s

Patti Page? "Sugar, Sugar"? There's such an array of bilge from every decade that I was expecting a much more even distribution, basically reflecting when everybody went through their cynical 20s. Ah well, llve and learn.

Now somebody with a positive attitude has to do a Best Decade poll!:)

[Beware the Beast Man]

27. So far, the 00's are the worst-

Teen pop, american idol garbage, nu-metal, and the overrated (though not all are bad, just way overrated) "The" bands. Band like Wilco getting dropped from their label for not being commercial enough, only to make the finest album of their career. Clear Channel, VH1 showing celebrity crap 24-7 rather than music. It's all shite
I need to go back underground.

[Nevernose]

30. I second the motion!

If I hear one more Creed song, Korn rip-off, bubblegum-punk, or anything by some woman singing yet another souless love song and who is famous primarily for her own sluttiness, I'm gonna climb tho the top of a bell tower.

It's to the point, these days, where I'm even longing for good rap. I'm not even all that fond of it. Remember when rap music had something to say, and rappers said it in new and creative ways? MTV even managed to make rap suck worse than it used to.

[Adenoid_Hynkel]

42. youy summed up my thoughts

no music whatsoever on mtv and v-h1, clearchannel playlists, and american idol are effectively killing music in the u.s.a.

[beyurslf]

29. 1950's. Elvis sounds like he is singing counrty and he is the

King of Rock?

[chenGOD]

31. I reject the concept of generalizing any decade's music...

There was some great stuff in every decade, just as there was some total drek in every decade.

[furrylitldevil]

32. The 80's sucked

Speaking as a musician and an artist, the 80's were the worst time for music in any century. There was an artistic vaccume in the 1980's which were all about appearance over artistic merrit and style over substance. At least the 90's had something to say. The 90's gave us bands like Rage Against the Machine, Tool, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, etc. All the 80's had to offer in the way of a message was that it is okay to party, sleep around, consume as many drugs as you want, and somehow, things will work themselves out.

The 80's sucked.

[blindpig]

33. music pretty much went to hell after the 70's

and started degenerating around 72. About the time disco raised its ugly head. A lot of the above mentioned punk/new wave bands of quality got started in the late 70's. Once in a while a decent artist will pop up but any trend or style sucks. Though some dinos like Fripp, Eno & Byrnes continue to produce fine stuff. Nothing like the late 60's/early 70's when the top 30 would be full of the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Zepplin, Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Steppenwolf, Spirit, Cream/Derek, Traffic & so on. Entropy, I guess.

[Bossy Monkey]

38. But then there's "Yummy Yummy Yummy (I've Got Love in My Tummy"

The dreck from the '60s was produced in volume, because there were more record labels and the baby boomers were such a large market to go after. I didn't post the poll with any agenda in particular; I continue to think that most people are going to go with whatever decade came right after they came of age. But I had kind of a suspicion that folks were going to romanticise the 60s, and much as I love all the artists you named, it's as well to remember that it was also the time of Ohio Express, 1910 Fruitgum Co., Frankie and Annette, etc., etc., etc.

[blindpig]

45. true enough

but at least we had a lot of good to counterbalance the bad. Where is a comparable quantity of good vs bad music in post 70 decades? Not to be found.

[southpaw]

34. That's hard to say...

My gut says 80's, but then I remember Stryper... Jesus' favorite hair band...

[mosin]

35. I voted for the 80's...

but after reading through the thread I remember how many of the old bands I loved.

Now I'm suffering from voter's remorse. :cry:

[geniph]

37. I was in high school in the 70s

and going to my high school reunions is a painful auditory experience, because they dredge up some of the truly horrible shit that was receiving radio airplay during that accursed decade. Yeah, there was a lot of good music being made, but it wasn't what was being played. The 70s had some GODAWFUL horrible music. Every decade has some, but it's the bad music of the 70s that truly makes me cringe, from the disco craze to the Urban Cowpie pseudo-country shit.

[Adenoid_Hynkel]

40. i consider the late 80s/early 90s to be it's own era

the alternative rock boom that started with the cure, rem, u2, and co. and went on until cobain died and grunge fizzled out was the best period in music history

the worst has to be the 70s -'classic' rock has, does, and always will suck. there's nothing sacred about the music of BTO and Foghat. Disco, for the most part, sucked. And overblown prog rock in the style of Yes was unbearable. The only redeeming thing about the decade was the NY punk/ new wave scene

this poll is hard to vote in as you have to make a distinction between the mainstream crap of any decade (J-Lo, American Idol in this one, for instance) and the cool music that finds its own audience (Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Wilco)

[Champ]

41. 2000-2009

The decade isn't over yet but I don't think it can get much worse.

[Deja Q]

43. The late 90s started the repetitive tripe, but those are glory days when

compared to now.

Everything is so watered down and the same. :puke:

Even the 80s synth is vastly preferable, and the early 80s had a certain charm with the new "instruments". It's still pop, but at least there's some ORIGINALITY to it.

[NightTrain]

44. Most of my favorite music is from the 1950s and '60s...

...despite the fact that I wasn't even born until 1966. Go figure!