Worst Decade of Music: 1960-2020

[Jimmy Higgins]

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.

72 - 74 was the golden period for Prog. In fact, it was so good, it kind of died because it was impossible to top. Close to the Edge, Dark Side of the Moon, Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, Tarkus (for people that can stomach ELP) perfected a short-lived movement in the very late 60s. Only Yes would manage to revisit the grandness later with Going for the One in '77. Rush would arrive a little late to the party and would contribute more to what prog who transition to in the 80s and onward.

As far as radio hits, I can't speak of much prior to the 80s as it was the only time I ever listened to popular music. In the 80s, music was fun, if not corny. We were told to clap our hands and sing along, and every song had a sax solo due to the McCain-Feingold Sax Act of 1983. I have no idea how bad pop music was in the 70s.

 

[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.

What, not Disco Duck and Wings?

I couldn't name them all. And actually, I find Wings far more offensive than Disco Duck. The latter was a novelty song that came and went pretty quickly. OTOH, McCartney's soft Whatever The Hell It Was went on for years.

 

[ideologyhunter]

Kung Fu Fighting. Who doesn't sing this in the shower, whistling the flute part?
Fun fact: Carl Douglas is still alive. Don't know if he still does an oldie tour.

 

[Ford]

As far as radio hits, I can't speak of much prior to the 80s as it was the only time I ever listened to popular music. In the 80s, music was fun, if not corny. We were told to clap our hands and sing along, and every song had a sax solo due to the McCain-Feingold Sax Act of 1983. I have no idea how bad pop music was in the 70s.

Growing up in the Detroit area, it was a given that if there was a live band playing, and they had a sax player, they would play "Turn the Page" by Bob Seger. I went into this bar with some friends, the band was on break, but there was a sax in a stand on the stage. I said "they're gonna play Turn the Page, aren't they?" Sure enough...

 

[Tharmas]

I find Wings far more offensive than Disco Duck. The latter was a novelty song that came and went pretty quickly. OTOH, McCartney's soft Whatever The Hell It Was went on for years.

Wings shows how much McCartney depended on Lennon as a collaborator, to temper some of the sugar with a bit of acid.

 

[Elixir]

I find Wings far more offensive than Disco Duck.

It was more offensive than almost anything. Except... one thing: Linda McCarney, the answer to the famous riddle:

Show

"What do you call a dog with wings?"

 

[WAB]

Yeah but she was a whole lot more attractive than Yoko. Sorry, Mr. Lennon.

 

[Colonel Sanders]

Yeah but she was a whole lot more attractive than Yoko.

But not much. Yoko is/was a flat out train wreck, but John still managed to create some good music despite Yoko's ever-present dreariness and onstage bloody-murder shrieking.

Linda was more like a talent-vampire with a lot of energy and utter lack of self awareness.

 

[Patooka]

The 90s could have been flawless and it still wouldn't balance out the ear raping of achey breaky heart.

Case closed.

 

[thebeave]

Yeah but she was a whole lot more attractive than Yoko.

But not much. Yoko is/was a flat out train wreck, but John still managed to create some good music despite Yoko's ever-present dreariness and onstage bloody-murder shrieking.

Linda was more like a talent-vampire with a lot of energy and utter lack of self awareness.

Yoko didn't know when to keep her mouth shut.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

The 90s could have been flawless and it still wouldn't balance out the ear raping of achey breaky heart.

Case closed.

The 90s... when music left me behind. I wasn't trying to be different... I just didn't like any of it! Grunge, alternative, whatever the fuck Firestarter was...

 

[ZiprHead]

Kind of silly to try to declare one decade's music as bad. There was great music in all those decades.

 

[WAB]

People should try to realize how difficult and unlikely it is to create music that a large number of people will like. For all the artists we know of, think of all the people who never made it anywhere. Millions of people right now are creating music that no one will particularly like, and few will ever hear.

Good music is music that works, that lots of people enjoy listening to. I can't stand most music I hear today, but I can't imagine what my great grandfather would have thought of Black Sabbath.

 

[Politesse]

People are supposed to feel nostalgic about the music that was around when they were kids, but I'll be straight with ya, I found little to like about the pop or country music of the 90s...

 

[WAB]

You were a kid in the 90s? Heck I thought you were much older.

 

[ideologyhunter]

That'll make ya friends. You're supposed to say it tactfully: 'Were you born before or after 8-tracks?"

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

People are supposed to feel nostalgic about the music that was around when they were kids, but I'll be straight with ya, I found little to like about the pop or country music of the 90s...

Giving this a little more effort...

Found this from Rolling Stone for the 90s. No Pearl Jam or Stone Temple Pilots (which I believe was the band you liked if you thought Pearl Jam was too mainstream). The biggest miss on this list is Sabotage by Beastie Boys. How does that not make the list. It occurred to me REM is early 90s, so there is that. LEONARD BERNSTEIN!!! (<--- of which I never knew those words until I read a Pearls Before Swine comic that referenced it)

III Sides To Every Story is one of the most under-rated albums from the 90s and probably the beginning of my trek to prog rock. Extreme got to the hair band rock scene a little late. Grunge came in, took over. Everyone wanted to mope, not to rock.

 

[Politesse]

Oh, there was some great music in the 90s! It just wasn't popular.

The studio system was becoming ever more entrenched and distant from what art needs to express, but the technologies to democratize and replace that system had not yet come into their own.

 

[TV and credit cards]

You were a kid in the 90s? Heck I thought you were much older.

That'll make ya friends. You're supposed to say it tactfully: 'Were you born before or after 8-tracks?"

Completely Automated Public Seniors Test To Tell Oldsters and Youngsters Apart (CAPSTOYA)
On what music format can two songs be heard simultaneously?

 

[robnisch]

For me Pop Music was just the background noise of the 60's, 70's.
By 1970 I had found bands like Pink Floyd,Yes, ELP, PFM, John Mclaughlin, Weather Report, Frank Zappa.