80s: Best Music Decade?
Violent Femmes (listen to Add It Up if you haven’t in a while), the first three Pixies albums, Talking Heads, Jane’s Addiction, DK, early Beastie Boys, Front 242, Love and Rockets, Black Flag, The Clash, some good Bowie, The The, Stray Cats, Concrete Blonde, the Smiths, the best Cure material, DEVO… was there a better decade?
Note I’m not trying to balance the good vs. the bad of any decade and come out with some soggy aggregate. There was also some idiotic music made back then. I’m saying I’ll take the best of the 80s vs. best of any decade.
We on?
There’s a ton of great music in the ’80s — easily one of my favorite movements of music is the underground US scene — as you mentioned Black Flag…but also Husker Du, Minutemen, Sonic Youth, Meat Puppets, the Replacements, Fugazi, Minor Threat…more on the underground tip…Elvis Costello did some great work in the early ’80s (especially his R&B/soul tribute “Get Happy!!”). Springsteen became a megastar and his music got a bit lamer, but still pretty good. There’s some great, obscure Willie Nelson duet albums (with Webb Pierce, Hank Snow). Nick Cave started his solo career in the ’80s with a lot of dark cabaret blues albums. Dinosaur JR. rocked their asses off! Jesus & the Mary Chain are pretty cool as well. Steve Earle put out “Guitar Town” which is a great country album, “Copperhead Road” as well. Butthole Surfers peaked in their reign of terror. (The Sun City Girls started way back then, as well). Mudhoney! Neil Young got back on track with the excellent “Freedom” in ‘89. Oh, yea — the Flaming Lips were a sweet guitar rock psych band instead of studio soulsucking wizards.
umm…the 60s? Y’all are too young to ‘preciate goooood music. Do yr homework!
Wuzzuh? The statement “There was great music in the ’80s” is not a judgement which would exclude the existence of great music in the ’60s. Actually, the ’60s haven’t been addressed here at all. The ’60s are kind of “the” decade for rock music. The Beatles, the Stones, Neil YOung, Buffalo Springfield, the Byrds, 13th Floor Elevators, Bob Dylan, CAN, the Flying Burrito Brothers, Frank Zappa, the Grateful Dead, the Jimi Hendrix Experience, Johnny Cash, Johnny Winter, Kaleidoscope, King Crimson, the Kinks, Love, Led Zeppelin, Merle Haggard, the Mothers of Invention, Mott the Hoople (their debut, at least), Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett, Ray Charles, the Rolling Stones, Sir Douglas Quintet, Van Morrison, more, more, so much more…