Worst Decade of Music: 1960-2020

[Colonel Sanders]

I used to play in cover bands, so I'd scour the charts for gems from past decades to find songs that other bands didn't cover. The 70s, without a doubt, inflicted the most auditory damage on radio audiences that hasn't been seen before or since.

I site the following:

Alone Again (Naturally): Gilbert O'Sullivan
I Am Woman: Hellen Reddy
Band on the Run: Paul McCartney and Wings
Billy Don't Be a Hero: Bo Donaldson and the Heywoods
The Night Chicago Died: Paper Lace

In a class by itself is C.W. McCall's Convoy.... and Debbie Boon (You Light up My Life (insert vomiting sound))

Anything by the Carpenters.
Anything by Captain and Tenille
Almost anything by Manilow (Nostalgia and being a nice guy prevents from hating him entirely)

Air Supply, although they cursed the world into the early 80s were a product of the 70s.

I could go on.

What say you?

 

[hurtinbuckaroo]

I used to play in cover bands, so I'd scour the charts for gems from past decades to find songs that other bands didn't cover. The 70s, without a doubt, inflicted the most auditory damage on radio audiences that hasn't been seen before or since.

I site the following:

Alone Again (Naturally): Gilbert O'Sullivan
I Am Woman: Hellen Reddy
Band on the Run: Paul McCartney and Wings
Billy Don't Be a Hero: Bo Donaldson and the Heywoods
The Night Chicago Died: Paper Lace

In a class by itself is C.W. McCall's Convoy.... and Debbie Boon (You Light up My Life (insert vomiting sound))

Anything by the Carpenters.
Anything by Captain and Tenille
Almost anything by Manilow (Nostalgia and being a nice guy prevents from hating him entirely)

Air Supply, although they cursed the world into the early 80s were a product of the 70s.

I could go on.

What say you?

A 70s list without disco?

 

[ideologyhunter]

Afternoon Delight. Please make them stooooooooooooooopppppppppppppppppp.
It was a #1 single in summer '76, so people actually bought copies of this song, took them home, and popped them into their 8-track players.

 

[pood]

I used to play in cover bands, so I'd scour the charts for gems from past decades to find songs that other bands didn't cover. The 70s, without a doubt, inflicted the most auditory damage on radio audiences that hasn't been seen before or since.

I site the following:

Alone Again (Naturally): Gilbert O'Sullivan
I Am Woman: Hellen Reddy
Band on the Run: Paul McCartney and Wings
Billy Don't Be a Hero: Bo Donaldson and the Heywoods
The Night Chicago Died: Paper Lace

In a class by itself is C.W. McCall's Convoy.... and Debbie Boon (You Light up My Life (insert vomiting sound))

Anything by the Carpenters.
Anything by Captain and Tenille
Almost anything by Manilow (Nostalgia and being a nice guy prevents from hating him entirely)

Air Supply, although they cursed the world into the early 80s were a product of the 70s.

I could go on.

What say you?

I agree with you about that crap, but I believe most of that stuff came from the late 70s. There was a ton of great rock in the 70s, but mostly I believe from the early part of the decade. I’m also surprised you didn’t mention the dreck that disco (mostly) was. I sometimes think a cultural flip switched after the fall of Nixon and Saigon, and pop music shifted to happy-dappy escapist crap.

The sound of today is hip-hop, and a great deal of it I like. I still recall listening to what probably should be classified as an early hip-hop song from around 1977, The White Man Has a God Complex. To me, most pop musiic today outside of a lot of hip hop is total garbage. I think scientific studies have even been done showing modern pop music has been dumbed down and simplified to appear to the lowest common denominator. And tons of indy radio stations have gone out of business or been co-opted by corporations. I wish I’d been around at the birth of rock around 1952.

 

[pood]

Check out these great classics from the 70s

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

The best music ever is from the 70s. There has been dreck in all decades. The 70s, however produced an endless list of classics. I do wonder whether 71-74 was the best bit though.

I find 80s music nostalgic as I grew up with it, but it was so corny, disco with synth. If it wasn't for The Police and Tom Petty, it'd been a complete loss.

 

[TV and credit cards]

Late sixties into the mid seventies was best. So many unique bands with their own sound. Beyond that, I struggle to call music that which lacks instruments and/or talking replaces singing.
I guess it depends on how you listens to music. Are you more analytical or emotional?

 

[ideologyhunter]

Actually theres's a ton of fine 70s/80s rock. The Band, from '70 through '76, was classic. The Blasters, in the early 80s. The Specials, at their peak around '80, mixed rock and ska in an intoxicating hybrid. Dylan, in his creative renaissance in the mid-70s. The last glorious blasts from Jimi and Janis. The Dead, incredibly strong from '70 through '78. The Allman Brothers, making landmark albums in the early 70s. There was high quality song writing from all those bands and performers, and top musicianship.
However, if you don't know what to listen to, and you simply go to a "Sound of the 70s" or "Sound of the 80s" station, you're going to get the dreck that, as Jimmy H says above, infects every decade. The disco. The 80s drum machine and synthesizer stuff. The lack of a complex guitar solo, which separated the men from the boys starting in the mid-60s.
I will always have the strongest affinity for the late 50s through early 70s, because those years round up the hard bop jazz and San Francisco rock that I listen to the most. I tell people who ask what they hear streaming out of my car's CD player that nearly everyone I listen to is dead.

 

[ImGod]

Anything country. I hate country. Maybe 3-4 songs in 60 years that don't make me want to poke out the ear drums.

I got stuck in a car for 3 hours riding with a country listening guy. Almost died. It took some death metal to clear it out and I don't listen to death metal.

Hee-haw shit.

 

[Ford]

You've listed some crap from the 70s, to be sure, but I'm gonna have to disagree with you on The Carpenters. Karen had a wonderful voice, and while I hated everything they did back then, I stop flipping through the radio dial when "Close To You" comes on.

Part of my music collection is the entire Billboard Top 100 hits from the early 1950s until around 2004-ish, and IMO the worst single year for hit music was 1989.

 

[ZiprHead]

70ies alternative rock was pretty good. The Clash, the Pixies, the Ramones, Souixie And The Banshees. Many others.

I never knew about any of those bands until the nineties and I got a subscription to Stereo Review. Punk/Alternative just did not get played on the radio here. The closest to punk was Cheap Trick.

 

[bilby]

You've listed some crap from the 70s, to be sure, but I'm gonna have to disagree with you on The Carpenters. Karen had a wonderful voice, and while I hated everything they did back then, I stop flipping through the radio dial when "Close To You" comes on.

Why?

Do birds suddenly appear?

 

[Colonel Sanders]

I used to play in cover bands, so I'd scour the charts for gems from past decades to find songs that other bands didn't cover. The 70s, without a doubt, inflicted the most auditory damage on radio audiences that hasn't been seen before or since.

I site the following:

Alone Again (Naturally): Gilbert O'Sullivan
I Am Woman: Hellen Reddy
Band on the Run: Paul McCartney and Wings
Billy Don't Be a Hero: Bo Donaldson and the Heywoods
The Night Chicago Died: Paper Lace

In a class by itself is C.W. McCall's Convoy.... and Debbie Boon (You Light up My Life (insert vomiting sound))

Anything by the Carpenters.
Anything by Captain and Tenille
Almost anything by Manilow (Nostalgia and being a nice guy prevents from hating him entirely)

Air Supply, although they cursed the world into the early 80s were a product of the 70s.

I could go on.

What say you?

A 70s list without disco?

I could've listed a lot more. I just took some of the crap of the crop.

 

[Colonel Sanders]

Actually theres's a ton of fine 70s/80s rock. The Band, from '70 through '76, was classic. The Blasters, in the early 80s. The Specials, at their peak around '80, mixed rock and ska in an intoxicating hybrid. Dylan, in his creative renaissance in the mid-70s. The last glorious blasts from Jimi and Janis. The Dead, incredibly strong from '70 through '78. The Allman Brothers, making landmark albums in the early 70s. There was high quality song writing from all those bands and performers, and top musicianship.
However, if you don't know what to listen to, and you simply go to a "Sound of the 70s" or "Sound of the 80s" station, you're going to get the dreck that, as Jimmy H says above, infects every decade. The disco. The 80s drum machine and synthesizer stuff. The lack of a complex guitar solo, which separated the men from the boys starting in the mid-60s.
I will always have the strongest affinity for the late 50s through early 70s, because those years round up the hard bop jazz and San Francisco rock that I listen to the most. I tell people who ask what they hear streaming out of my car's CD player that nearly everyone I listen to is dead.

There was a lot of great music made in the 70s, but I'm referring to Billboard 100 types of songs.

The 80s were so much better than the 70s in terms of big hits and even top 50 stuff. At least it wasn't the dull, edgeless dreck that permeated music stations back then.

Oh, 80s guitar players? Probably the best technicians to have ever existed in popular music. As much as hair metal has been derided, technical excellence was the price of admission to that genre.

 

[Colonel Sanders]

You've listed some crap from the 70s, to be sure, but I'm gonna have to disagree with you on The Carpenters. Karen had a wonderful voice, and while I hated everything they did back then, I stop flipping through the radio dial when "Close To You" comes on.

Part of my music collection is the entire Billboard Top 100 hits from the early 1950s until around 2004-ish, and IMO the worst single year for hit music was 1989.

If God exists, and there really is a permanent place of torment, the Carpenters will be played on an endless loop there.

 

[TV and credit cards]

Anything country. I hate country. Maybe 3-4 songs in 60 years that don't make me want to poke out the ear drums.

I got stuck in a car for 3 hours riding with a country listening guy. Almost died. It took some death metal to clear it out and I don't listen to death metal.

Hee-haw shit.

Break for rant.
Luke Combs cover of Fast Car disturbed me deeply. I abhor country and to have this wonderful song raped in the woods by the hill folk brought tears to my eyes. I don't mind covers but the person doing so needs to make it their own in some fashion not just sing someone else's song. A country twang doesn't cut it.
And as the seventies waned and my friends gravitated toward metal (an assault on the ears) I found new friends, a group that covered Led Zeppelin, proper music.
Carry on.

 

[Ford]

Actually theres's a ton of fine 70s/80s rock. The Band, from '70 through '76, was classic. The Blasters, in the early 80s. The Specials, at their peak around '80, mixed rock and ska in an intoxicating hybrid. Dylan, in his creative renaissance in the mid-70s. The last glorious blasts from Jimi and Janis. The Dead, incredibly strong from '70 through '78. The Allman Brothers, making landmark albums in the early 70s. There was high quality song writing from all those bands and performers, and top musicianship.
However, if you don't know what to listen to, and you simply go to a "Sound of the 70s" or "Sound of the 80s" station, you're going to get the dreck that, as Jimmy H says above, infects every decade. The disco. The 80s drum machine and synthesizer stuff. The lack of a complex guitar solo, which separated the men from the boys starting in the mid-60s.
I will always have the strongest affinity for the late 50s through early 70s, because those years round up the hard bop jazz and San Francisco rock that I listen to the most. I tell people who ask what they hear streaming out of my car's CD player that nearly everyone I listen to is dead.

There was a lot of great music made in the 70s, but I'm referring to Billboard 100 types of songs.

The 80s were so much better than the 70s in terms of big hits and even top 50 stuff. At least it wasn't the dull, edgeless dreck that permeated music stations back then.

Oh, 80s guitar players? Probably the best technicians to have ever existed in popular music. As much as hair metal has been derided, technical excellence was the price of admission to that genre.

I was into all that 80s instrumental guitar metal back in the day. That era where everyone was trying to be the next Yngwie, cramming as many notes into a solo as possible. I bought the guitar magazines, tried really hard to learn sweep-picking and arpeggios. When I go back and listen to it now? Some still holds up. A lot of it was just wanking.

 

[Tharmas]

I'll defend Disco to a point, although I used to hate it with a passion. My wife has very good memories of the Bee Gees, but then she used to love to go out dancing in a younger day. There was a guy on a different board who loved the Bee Gees, and he actually sent me a CD of their greatest hits. I'll listen to it every once in a while, every couple of years.

As for Top 40, the seventies produced Pink Floyd (Dark Side of the Moon, The Wall, etc.) and Fleetwood Mac (Rumors, etc.). Those have aged well in my opinion.

 

[Tharmas]

Also I have to mention Dylan's Blood on the Tracks, which is simply brilliant. And let's not forget Neil Young (After the Gold Rush).

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

You've listed some crap from the 70s, to be sure, but I'm gonna have to disagree with you on The Carpenters. Karen had a wonderful voice, and while I hated everything they did back then, I stop flipping through the radio dial when "Close To You" comes on.

Part of my music collection is the entire Billboard Top 100 hits from the early 1950s until around 2004-ish, and IMO the worst single year for hit music was 1989.

If God exists, and there really is a permanent place of torment, the Carpenters will be played on an endless loop there.

What, not Disco Duck and Wings?