What decade would you consider the weakest for music? starting from the 60's to present

Of course this all subjective but for me it is probably this decade although the 00's where really bad too. Everything just feels soulless I think the internet is to blame partially. Any moron can get a record deal just look at the cash me outside girl. Before the internet blew up it seemed like you really needed talent to earn a record deal especially if you where in a rock band. Sure you had talentless people get records in the past but now the bar has lowered to a place that I didn't even think was possible.

Anyways what decade do you think is the weakest? and why? from 60's to present.

Yeah I agree

This decade sucks imo. Everything early 2000’s and earlier was so much better. Particularly 60’s to the 90’s

Are you targeting just the genres you enjoyed or music as whole?

@PSP107:

The genres I enjoyed

There's more music now than there ever has been. Now is the best time to be a fan of music.

Year doesn't matter. Music is eternal.

Thanks to the internet, music has died and there’s nothing left to innovate or create. How you may ask?

Napster started it (although it was bound to happen as technology improved), and the internet run amuck with it. No one pays for music anymore and it’s either streamed with a subscription, viewed in YouTube, or stolen - again, internet. Today’s pop music requires zero talent. You’re autotuned and can’t play an instrument. You don’t even need writing creatively as you can just follow a formula that every producer follows.

Obviously anything prior to the internet made for a better music scene.

From 00's to today. Music is just mass produced crap now.

I agree, music in the last 10-15 years has mostly been turgid crap. There's some good stuff in there, but on the whole I am not impressed.

In my opinion Pop music went bad in 2009 to present for the most part. Guys like Charlie Puth are pretty talented though. I don't mind Bruno Mars either. Even the last Justin Bieber album was pretty good. The issue from what I understand is that there's more "beat makers" and less..."seasoned producers" these days. Just my opinion though.

2010s. This decade is seriously lacking in musical innovation. In contrast, the 60s had the rock revolution, the 70s had the disco revolution, the 80s had the electronic revolution, and the 90s had the hip hop revolution.

@warmblur: The weakest decade for music is the one we have right now.

We have a generation who is going to grow up with Bieber and Ariana Grande and Auto-Tune maxed out, not to mention the horrid rap/hip/hop music where it´s nothing but derogatory terms for various groups. But apparently, it's ok as long as it´s in a song.

This decade is definitely the worst for me. I'm with the guy above who said 60's to early 2000s were the better years.

I will say though, I was flipping through the radio the other day and came across Ed Sheeran's "Perfect," and I was shocked at the talented writing of that one. I haven't heard anything like it in years.

I'm still mostly disappointed by modern music though. I recently had a friend over and she tried on my Sennheiser HD 600s, but the song she chose was "Radioactive." What a waste - those drums are so loud that they're peaking.

This century, either decade was weak.

Prior to this century each decade from 60's - 90's had something worthwhile.

60's had Rock (Dylan, Beatles, Stones, Kinks, Yardbirds, The Doors, Hendrix, and the Velvet Underground) and Motown (Supremes, Temptations, Four Tops)

70's had Soul (Marvin Gaye, Curtis Mayfield, Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes, Ojays, Al Green, Stevie Wonder, Stylistics, Chi-lites) and Punk/ New Wave/post-punk (Ramones, Sex Pistols, Clash, Wire, The Jam, Joy Division, Talking Heads, The Pretenders, Elvis Costello, The Cars, The Police, B-52's)

80's had Rap and post-punk/alternative/college radio

90's had Rap and grunge

Oh I generally find something wrong with every decade/generation to criticize. I just listen to what I want; sometimes it's from 2013, or maybe its from 1997...I don't know. One of the many virtues of having an eclectic, mercurial taste in music.

1950's had bebop or whatever we call "oldies" now....ew.

1960's arguably gave birth to "pop". This is why I dislike the Beatles; yeah, they are important, but I loathe their music.

1970's had disco. But it also had funk YAY!

1980's had, well....80's music

1990's had grunge which was great at the time but, my god, have you listened to grunge recently? Most of it is garbage.

2000's saw the teen groups/solo artist rise. Not that they weren't around before, but jesus they just sort of took over. Spears this, Aguilera that...Nsync and so on.

2010's is the decade hip-hop died and was reanimated as talentless mumble-rap. Puff Daddy and Jay-Z might have started killing it when they commercialized rap in the late 90's/early 2000's, but 2010's is when it died.

Musicians have, historically, made a fair chunk of money from touring and merchandising. While the money they get from record deals is not small, it is a small %, and it's the record labels that sign them that suffer.

The musicians themselves succeed and fail by their own doing. If they are willing to put in the work--write new songs, tour, and so forth--then they will be successful.

In other words, they have to work for their money like the rest of us. Blaming "the internet" for bad music is lazy, on both sides of the argument.

@mrbojangles25: Of all the music out of the 60´s you mention Beatles and Pop :D

But don´t forget this one. It´s 50 years since he released it and you can´t help wonder if in 50 years someone will write something similar to this thread somewhere in a world like Ready player one and post a video of Ariana Grande and Bieber and say this is the most epic music :D

Judging by the number of good songs this decade is probably not the worst for the simple fact that there's a lot more music being produced now than in the 60's and the 70's. But when you look at what is mainstream now, and what was mainstream from the 80's onward (I still didn't exist in the 70's like most of us on this forum), then this is definitely the worst decade. I feel bad for the new kids, they are supposed to fall in love while dancing to Taylor fucking Swift.

@Jacanuk: hahahaha yeah, definitely took a cynic's view of it.

What I meant to say is that you can always find something wrong with anything, doesn't mean it's is fundamentally wrong. I love the music of 60's...of all decades. For the most part :P Some of it I do not, though.

Can't believe Bowie was performing all that time ago. I always found it odd that my dad--straight-shooting government worker who is culturally uptight--enjoyed Bowie, but it makes sense; he would have been in his late-20's/early-30's when he heard him

LOL yep :)

But yea you are right there are always faults to find. But like you, I love music from the '60s and '70s, and up until the early 00´s since who does not like David Bowie, Led Zeppelin, Van Halen, Rolling Stones, Creedence, The Who, Bob Dylon, Johnny B Goode, Frank Sinatra, Lois Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald and all the others, it´s crazy to think how much great music came from that one decade.

And ya Bowie was a good old 60´s artist, he came out in that genre so no wonder your dad liked him. He was also an epic singer and he created some memorable music.

Couldn't agree more I'm so glad was born in the 80's and was able to experience great music growing up I feel kinda of bad for kids growing up on this soulless music of today. MTV is complete trash these days but in the 80's and up to about 97 it was so exciting to see a new music videos from all types of artist I miss those days. For me it all went down hill when Britany Spears and the boybands came out music was never the same again at least main stream music that is.

I totally agree with this. Modern tech allows people to push the medium in ways they never could, and cheaply distribute it worldwide. You can find anything you want now if you know where to look.

But I think the OP was referring to popular trends of different time periods, and to that I say the 00's were the worst. The industry experiencing a paradigm shift, and they didn't know what to sell or how to sell it in the modern world. So they kept trying to push less good versions of music that was popular in the 90's. Stuff like Nirvana and Pearl Jam were supplanted by stuff like Creed and Stained. Green Day begat Blink 182 and Sum 41, Rage Against the Machine begat Limp Bizkit and the whole rap/rock genre in general. There were a few bright spots, but overall it was just a bad time all around.

Think it depends on genre.

@Jacanuk:

Although Bowie started in the 60's, he was very much the 70's. He, along with groups like Queen, Van Halen, and Aerosmith, clearly made their best music that decade. Trust me I grew up in the 70's and had all the albums back in the day before I jumped to the punk scene. While Led Zeppelin had most of their albums in the 70's, their incredible first 2 albums were from the 60's.

I don't get the hate for The Beatles......but I also understand that I am older than most on here, so I understand their greatness and cultural relevance with a perspective closer to what was going on back then. They were MAJOR.

The Beatles and Bob Dylan also transitioned Rock and roll into Rock music with the releases of "Rubber Soul" and "Bringing it all back home" in 1965, inarguably 2 of the greatest albums of all-time.

The Internet is making music grow and expand, like never before. You can listen to songs on YouTube, Spotify, Pandora, iTunes, etc. There are more options of how to listen to music, and variety of music than ever before. I've discovered many new bands and songs via YouTube. With the Internet, you get access to pretty much every band in the world. This isn't the case when you're listening to the radio, browsing CD's on store shelves, or watching MTV, etc.

There's always been great music out there, however its how we've been consuming music this last decade that's attenuated its impact on us. You can have Ed Sheeran selling multi millions of an album a few years ago, but few people will remember what it's called. I guess we don't see as much creativity in mainstream music as much we once did, although its never been easier to dig a little deeper. Perhaps IT is the new rock n roll? Maybe.

Picking a decade in the last 60 years is difficult. The 50's gave us rock and roll and in turn arguably youth an identity, albeit in its nascent form its probably the hardest one to go back to. The 60's we all know about, I love the mid-late 70's philly soul/disco/italio/post punk era which spilled onto the 80's, when electronic music nailed down some credibility. The 90s probably saw the last of the great inventors - genres were more refined, micro genres broke away and ideas were regurgitated more often, however that doesn't mean it was weak. Bottom line is I haven't a clue really, but given a choice I'd take the 80's first.

@AFBrat77: Technically, rock and rock & roll mean the same thing. Even in the 80s and 90s, people were using the terms rock and rock & roll interchangeably. Nevertheless, there is a distinction between 50s rock (what people now call rock & roll) and 60s rock (a.k.a. classic rock), with 50s rock being closer to its R&B roots, before 60s rock diversified into various subgenres, e.g. The Beatles' psychedelic/raga rock, Bob Dylan's folk rock, Jimi Hendrix's heavy/blues rock, etc.

@Jag85:

"Rock and roll" and "Rock" are 2 different things, it's hard to see it now, but there are clear distinctions. Rock and roll came to prominance in 1955 and was the music choice of the last silent generation and emerging baby boomer youth culture. It was fast, lightweight but had provocative (at the time) lyrics and it was despised by authority who saw it as a means to subvert the youth.

Rock married Rock and roll with more poignant and meaningful lyrics, often slowing the pace but providing much more depth to the lyrics and playing styles. The initial Rock albums were folk-rock albums like Dylan's "Bringing it all Back Home" and "Highway 61 Revisited", along with The Beatles "Rubber Soul" later that year.(1965). The Rolling Stones contributed the first huge Rock hit with Satisfaction that year, it became the biggest hit of the year and the signature song for the disaffected young baby boomers. Rock branched off into many different flavors, it was the music of the burgeoning youth culture of the '60's.

Looking back I'd say 2 of the most important and influential Rock Bands.of the 60's were The Yardbirds (who set the stage for heavy metal) and The Velvet Underground (who.set the stage for punk). Eventually these 2 styles would merge in late 80's/early 90's for GenXers.

I'd recommend millennials who appreciate Rock music history to look into The Yardbirds (Jimmy Page would pick up new musicians and change the name of the band to Led Zeppelin) and The Velvet Underground (who had a direct impact on the entire punk/post-punk scene of the late 70's and entire 80's). Very basically put, heavy metal favored musicianship, punk favored impactful lyrics.

@AFBrat77:

Up until the '90s, I remember "rock and roll" being synonymous with "rock", with no distinction being made between the two. It wasn't until the 2000s that I started seeing fans on the internet suddenly differentiating between "rock" and "rock and roll". What '60s bands like The Beatles was doing was still "rock and roll", and that's what they called it themselves.

I agree that there are musical differences between '50s "rock & roll" and '60s "classic rock", but they are still fundamentally the same genre, not different genres. What The Beatles were doing in the '60s was still, at its core, the same genre as what Chuck Berry was doing in the '50s. For example, the '50s classic "Johnny B. Goode" (which made a comeback with Back to the Future in the '80s) has always sounded like straight-up rock music to me, not some different genre. What '60s musicians like The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Yardsticks, Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan, etc. were doing is evolving and diversifying the rock & roll genre, not trying to create a new genre altogether.

@Jag85:

We will just have to disagree here then... .but understand that what I'm saying is The Beatles, Stones, Kinks, etc. INITIALLY were playing Rock and roll even covering Berry and Holly to varying degree. But that changed when Rock and roll moved away from slight lyrics and joined in more consientous lyrics and added diversity to playing style. Johnny B. Goode to me is clearly Rock and roll (and a great song) while something like The Byrd's "8 Miles High" (as a random example) is clearly Rock to me.

I've understood the difference since the 1970's. At least to me there's a clear difference in the terms. But I'm not saying they are completely separate! Rock and roll is the parent, Rock Is the evolved kid. But it is a significant evolution. I'm just saying where that happened.

Oh, and as a side note, even the pop songs of the mid to late 60's were good! Breaking Bad fans may remember this song at the end of season 3:

I'd say 2000 on music became less interesting. Not saying there isn't good music but you have to look for it. The mainstream sources all promote crap now. Pop sucks.

@AFBrat77: Not disagreeing with that, I just posted the video because it was one of his biggest hits and it came out in 69.

Bowie has so many hits and span over 70´s 80´s and 90´s so it´s hard to pinpoint an era where he was best.

@Jacanuk:

Yeah that was my bad, looking back you were just talking "Space Oddity". True, there are some who will like other decades of Bowie more. I was a Ziggy Stardust/ Aladdin Sane era Bowie fan as a kid myself

@AFBrat77: Well yeah, I agree that '60s classic rock was a big evolution over '50s rock & roll. But my point is that they're both still rock to me. Although that's something we can agree to disagree on.

It's also worth noting that the '60s rock bands didn't necessarily follow the same rock template, but there were different schools of rock that evolved rock & roll in their own unique ways, like Bob Dylan's folk-rock style, The Beatles' psychedelic and raga-rock styles, the Rolling Stones' blues-rock style, Cream's hard-rock/blues-rock style, Jimi Hendrix's heavy-metal/blues-rock style, etc. One thing they all had in common is that they were working from the same rock & roll (and blues) base, but interpreted it differently and evolved it in different ways. That's partly why I don't think rock & roll can be differentiated from rock.

@Jag85:

I understand where you are coming from brother, and I do agree with you that it all goes back to 50's Rock and roll. On that we are on the same page.

My perspective is that when Dylan and The Beatles took thoughtful and reflective lyrics and placed them together with deeper musical variation, Rock was born. At that moment, other artists recognized the floodgates were open to so many possible variations, the "different schools of Rock" as you would say. The door was open, the original innocent fun of rock and roll was gone, even The Byrd's song I listed marked the beginning of psychedelic rock. And Syd Barret era Pink Floyd just a short while later, oh my! They really ran with the possibilities. Not to mention other bands took on psychedelia. But ultimately thats just one avenue Rock took, albeit one of my favorites. So many more. And the 60's was especially creative.

Ok, no more videos, thought I'd share some stuff young generations may never have heard. You guys might recognize a young Todd Rundgren in The Nazz video and a young Ted Nugent (with a wicked guitar solo) in the Amboy Dukes video. Camper van Beethoven did a wicked version of pictures of Matchstick men in the 80's or 90's. good stuff.

But getting back on point, I respect how you see things, we just have some differing ideas.

Agreed. Anything from the 2000's going forward has been in a steep decline in quality. I will say some genres I listened to before the 2000's have been on a quality roller coaster like metal and rock. Rap is basically dead and electronic/house/trance have become *puts on hipster glasses and fedora* too mainstream and its a shell of it's former self.

But hey, that is just my opinion.

All music from every era is quirky and shitty in some way. I like some music from every era. Im mostly an 80's electro pop/college rock guy (The Cure, Smiths, New Order, U2) and I really like the 2000's bands that revived that sound (The Killers, Bloc Party, etc). I GUESS the 2010's have been sort of meh. I like The Weeknd and Frank Ocean, but rock music hasn't really been great. Although The Vaccines debut album from 2010 is awesome. The 1975 is meh.

I dont understand the 60's and 70's. 80's to early 2000 music is my groove. I dont really watch or listen to latest music, always connect spotify for everything so I never really listen to modern music. so I have no opinion on that.

@LJS9502_basic: Did you like the 80's revival bands of the 2000's like The Killers and Franz or no

@AFBrat77: Well yeah, I can see where you're coming from. The '60s was a big leap forward for rock music, and that decade defined what rock music would become for decades to come. Though the way I'd differentiate '50s rock from '60s rock is "rock & roll" and "classic rock", respectively.

Personally, the '60s isn't my favourite era, but I prefer the eras that came after it, the '70s to the '90s. But what I can appreciate about the '60s is the creativity and experimentalism coming from mainstream popular music of that era. I agree with what Frank Zappa said about the '60s, in that he thought the era isn't so great as people make it out to be, but what made the '60s special was that music of an experimental nature was being released as mainstream records, something that became less common over the decades.

I liked some of the revival bands........yes.

@Jag85:

I would say looking through the years, that five year span of 1965- 1969 was by far the most creative, innovative, and influential musical period in the last 60 years. I have barely even touched on the impact of Hendrix, Pink Floyd (Syd Barrett era), Moody Blues, The Velvet Underground, Cream, Beach Boys "Good Vibrations/God Only Knows period, Sly and the Family Stone, Santana (who in fairness did their best work in the early 70'), the Yardbirds and some little band called Led Zeppelin, which made an immediate impact on the opening chords of 1968's "Good Times, Bad Times". Hell, even Frank Zappa himself despite what he said.

Heavy Metal (apologize Sabbath fans, of which I am one), the blueprints for punk (the Sex Pistols even covered The Stooges "No Fun" and "I wanna be your dog"), and even all the 70's mellow singer/songwriter (thanks to Dylan, Simon and Garfunkel, and the very underrated writing by Ray Davies of The Kinks).was initiated in this era James Brown, Aretha Franklin, and Motown were creative in this period and gave us some of soul music's greatest stars. It's a period that caught lightning in a bottle. The turbulent 60's indeed. It's influence on most all music to come after is enormous.

Don't get me wrong, I love alot of music from the 70's, 80's, and 90's, but that period in the late 60's was just something else. It reminds me so much of that fantastic period in PC gaming from 1997-2000 inclusive when developers were especially creative after the possibilities when windows 95, 3dfx, and CD roms came to prominance. Highly influential, and so many games these days are extensions of those games

Eh most of the 60s music was similar. Sure there was innovation but that exists after the 60s as well. One of the best things to happen to rock was punk. Not that the music as masterpieces but that it got rid of the bloat of the 60s and 70s bands that were just repeating themselves to sell out concerts.

@LJS9502_basic:

I loved the punk movement as well, and that was a great period late 70's/ early 80's (that's when my generation came of age so I can relate).....but to me that bloat didn't happen until early 70's around 1972 or 1973 when bands other than a few notable exceptions became complacent, and dinosaur bands like Styx, Journey, REO Speedwagon, Foreigner, Yes (whose most interesting album was probably 1971 before Wakeman joined), Jethro Tull (best stuff Aqualung and prior, I like Ian Anderson and Thick as a Brick, but I think the success of Aqualung went to his head) started signing big contracts and losing their inspiration, just chugging out crap after crap (It's difficult to ever dispute the greatness of 1973's Dark Side of the Moon however). They became classic rock staples but I for one can't listen to that crap anymore. Things needed to change.. and they did :).

You will notice most all the big influences are from the late 60's music, not the middle 70's as far as Rock goes. I think mid 70's soul/funk music (but not disco!) was better than Rock then.

@AFBrat77:

Interestingly, there was a scientific study done to determine which was the most influential decade in the history of modern popular music, and the result surprised many, even the scientists themselves:

The three ages of modern pop: Scientists pinpoint musical 'revolutions' over past 50 years - and hip hop reigns supreme

They found that the most influential decade in modern popular music was actually the '90s. That decade coincided with several major movements. Grudge redefined the sound of rock music. The rise of house and techno defined the sound of electronic dance music. But what really made the '90s the most influential decade was the rise of hip hop, which marked a paradigm shift for popular music. The article mainly focuses on the rise of hip hop, but I would also add grunge and house/techno as contributing to making the '90s the most influential decade. And there was also nu metal, which merged grunge with hip hop in the late '90s.

I would argue that, in many ways, the popular music that came in the 2000s and 2010s could be considered extensions of '90s popular music. And that's partly what makes popular music of the 2000s and 2010s so underwhelming in comparison, because they're still largely following the '90s templates, with barely much innovation since then. In some ways, popular music is kind of like video games in that regard, with later decades being unable to match the creativity and innovation of the '90s.

However, the study found that the 2000s was no less diverse or varied than previous decades. They instead identified the '80s as the era with the least diversity and variety in modern popular music, despite also recognizing the '80s as a revolutionary era that popularized electronic music. Which I don't find too surprising, since the '80s is the decade that had a distinct sound easily identifiable as "that '80s sound". And I would argue that's because '80s popular music was dominated by a handful of synthesizers and electronic drums, mostly from the same two companies, Yamaha and Roland.

But it's worth noting that the study is mainly based on music that was popular in the US (including UK music that was big there), and doesn't necessarily represent the rest of the world. On the US popular music charts, the '90s was the most influential decade and the '80s the least diverse decade. But that may not be the case for other countries around the world.

00s. Rock died. It was the rise of Indie but just about everything else sucked.

So in essence for me it's....

60's over 70's over 80's over 90's way over either this century

But it's close between first four, not a whole lot separated 60's and 90's for me, and 70's and 80's are virtually tied. Loved 90's as well. But even a relatively weak first 5 years couldn't hold the 60's off at #1, the second half to me was THAT good.

@mrbojangles25: This reminds me of that really old South Park episode when stan downloads a song and that rapper cannot afford to buy a island for sons birthday.

lol yeah, master p

"I've got something to show you, and I don't think your going to like it very much!"