Best Ever Albums

Re: You've Only Got 5 Bands To Describe An Entire Decade

Thad — Mon, 12 Mar 2018 23:13:04 GMT

Author: Thad

Posted: 03/13/2018 03:13

60's

The Beatles
The Rolling Stones
The Velvet Underground
James Brown
Miles Davis

70's

Pink Floyd
Led Zeppelin
Stevie Wonder
David Bowie
Joy Division

80's

The Smiths
The Cure
Michael Jackson
U2
REM

90's

Nirvana
Radiohead
Nas
Weezer
NWA

00's

Radiohead
Kanye West
Arcade Fire
Jay-Z
The Strokes

10's

Kendrick Lamar
Frank Ocean
Tame Impala
Sufjan Stevens
Death Grips

Re: You've Only Got 5 Bands To Describe An Entire Decade

Boltzmann — Sun, 11 Mar 2018 16:46:05 GMT

Author: Boltzmann

Posted: 03/11/2018 20:46

I like this idea. Here we go:

60s:
The Beatles
The Beach Boys
Otis Redding
Jimi Hendrix
Bob Dylan

70s:
David Bowie
Led Zeppelin
Chic
Kraftwerk
Fleetwood Mac

80s:
Madonna
Michael Jackson
Sonic Youth
Public Enemy
R.E.M.

90s:
My Bloody Valentine
Dr. Dre
Massive Attack
The Prodigy
Nirvana

00s:
Kanye West
Britney Spears
Daft Punk
Dizzee Rascal
The Flaming Lips

10s:
Nicki Minaj
Future
Drake
Sia
Kendrick Lamar

Funny enough, in every decade the last artist is one that revived an old genre rather than innovating a new one.

Re: You've Only Got 5 Bands To Describe An Entire Decade

RoundTheBend — Fri, 9 Mar 2018 22:40:31 GMT

Author: RoundTheBend

Posted: 03/10/2018 03:40

YoungPunk wrote:

I give up

Re: You've Only Got 5 Bands To Describe An Entire Decade

PurpleHazel — Fri, 9 Mar 2018 02:08:43 GMT

Author: PurpleHazel

Posted: 03/09/2018 07:08

The 70s just has too many subgenres for any one 5-artist list to satisfy everybody. Probably true for other decades too, but seems more glaring for that one.

Re: You've Only Got 5 Bands To Describe An Entire Decade

YoungPunk — Fri, 9 Mar 2018 00:00:49 GMT

Author: YoungPunk

Posted: 03/09/2018 05:00

I give up

Re: You've Only Got 5 Bands To Describe An Entire Decade

travelful — Thu, 8 Mar 2018 20:56:01 GMT

Author: travelful

Posted: 03/09/2018 01:56

You've gotta include a reggae artist when describing the 70's. Jamaican music and reggae was at it's peak in the 70's and a very high peak at that. I chose Bob Marley just because he's basically the face of anything Jamaica and the only reggae artist that would be considered a household name, making him the best candidate.

Re: You've Only Got 5 Bands To Describe An Entire Decade

RoundTheBend — Thu, 8 Mar 2018 19:58:48 GMT

Author: RoundTheBend

Posted: 03/09/2018 00:58

bobbyb5 wrote:

This is actually probably true of any decade.

Re: You've Only Got 5 Bands To Describe An Entire Decade

PurpleHazel — Thu, 8 Mar 2018 17:17:06 GMT

Author: PurpleHazel

Posted: 03/08/2018 22:17

bobbyb5 wrote:

What the soul audience was listening to most in the 70s was not funk. The most popular soul Acts of the 70s were the vocal groups and the more romantic type of Pop soul that I mentioned. Groups like The Spinners and The O'Jays and the Commodores and the Stylistics were the most popular artist in Soul music. Besides Superstars like Stevie Wonder Michael Jackson etcetera. And also Disco. And the funk that became popular was the funk that got played in discos. Like Parliament Funkadelic and a few others.

When you say funk that got played in "discos" you mean mainly before 1977, right? Because people were dancing to a lot of funk in discos before disco swamped it -- Earth, Wind and Fire, Ohio Players, Kool & the Gang, 70s James Brown. Don't know how much War got played in clubs, but they were very popular too. P-Funk was one of the few funk artists that still got played in discos deep into the disco era. Also it's worth pointing out that some of the soul/vocal group music is actually funk -- the O'Jays' "Money," several Stevie Wonder songs, the Commodores' "Brick House," Curtis Mayfield's "Freddy's Dead" etc.

Re: You've Only Got 5 Bands To Describe An Entire Decade

Anonymous — Thu, 8 Mar 2018 14:48:08 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 03/08/2018 19:48

70s
The Bee gees
Yes
The Carpenters
Devo
Led Zeppelin Kiss

Re: You've Only Got 5 Bands To Describe An Entire Decade

Anonymous — Thu, 8 Mar 2018 14:03:31 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 03/08/2018 19:03

drakonium wrote:

I'm not sure to get it. I'd gladly take an example 😄

Edit : or do you mean like Yes would be more archetypal of prog than Pink Floyd, even though they were less successful? I think these kinds of situation are pretty rare. Best-selling artists from a genre are usually pretty representative.

Yeah, that's what I meant 😄 I agree the big sellers will be pretty representative in any era. I guess for me the challenge is to try and think of some artists who are somehow even more representative than the biggest sellers. Maybe they are a bit more generic and "of their time". That's why I would go with the Bangles over Michael Jackson for 80s pop! I am struggling a bit for good 70s examples though. You really need to know an era well to do this.

I also think it's worth including a token example of "the underground" in the top 5 to not appear totally populist hehe.

Re: You've Only Got 5 Bands To Describe An Entire Decade

bobbyb5 — Thu, 8 Mar 2018 13:39:58 GMT

Author: bobbyb5

Posted: 03/08/2018 18:39

drakonium wrote:

I get it and I agree with you ; but with that in mind, how do you put both Styx and Boston, or both James Taylor and The Eagles?

I mean, either we're going by fame, which I don't think is very interesting because it's just numbers, or by diversity, which is OK but then I don't think your ranking is, because it omits whole major genres in favour of a massive quantity of rock's secondary subgenres. Also let's not talk about how it's 100% focused on white Americans.

Tbh I'm being really picky over a simple ranking, but I was just really surprised to see you write that you felt the "full breadth of the 70s" was not well represented, only to add more rock subgenres. Also I realize I've not put it very cordially in the first place, so sorry about that haha

I put Eagles to represent country rock, and James Taylor to represent singer-songwriter or soft rock.

But the reason that I put those sub genres is because they were popular. I wasn't going by what I think is best
And I wasn't just talking about white Americans. What the soul audience was listening to most in the 70s was not funk. The most popular soul Acts of the 70s were the vocal groups and the more romantic type of Pop soul that I mentioned. Groups like The Spinners and The O'Jays and the Commodores and the Stylistics were the most popular artist in Soul music. Besides Superstars like Stevie Wonder Michael Jackson etcetera. And also Disco. And the funk that became popular was the funk that got played in discos. Like Parliament Funkadelic and a few others.

Re: You've Only Got 5 Bands To Describe An Entire Decade

bobbyb5 — Thu, 8 Mar 2018 13:13:29 GMT

Author: bobbyb5

Posted: 03/08/2018 18:13

Michael1981 wrote:

Well, that would work ok but there may be artists who are more archetypal of what was popular than the most popular artists.

Now that you mention it, the top 10 best selling albums of the 70s might actually give you a pretty accurate picture. You would probably see Pink Floyd, Eagles, Carole King, Saturday Night Fever, Supertramp, Stevie Wonder, Fleetwood Mac and I can't remember who else. But even that would be pretty representative of all the different genres that were huge. I need to go look this up.

Re: You've Only Got 5 Bands To Describe An Entire Decade

drakonium — Thu, 8 Mar 2018 13:11:54 GMT

Author: drakonium

Posted: 03/08/2018 18:11

Michael1981 wrote:

Well, that would work ok but there may be artists who are more archetypal of what was popular than the most popular artists.

Re: You've Only Got 5 Bands To Describe An Entire Decade

drakonium — Thu, 8 Mar 2018 13:09:26 GMT

Author: drakonium

Posted: 03/08/2018 18:09

bobbyb5 wrote:

Idk. I didn't post the topic. And he asks what best defined decades. And if you ranked the top 10 artists by sales they might end up to be just a couple different genres. And you might get the impression that only those genres were popular. It might end up being all Eagles or Fleetwood Mac albums or something, that wouldn't be very representative at all. It would just tell you who the best selling artist were. Without telling you who the next 10 best selling artists were.

Re: You've Only Got 5 Bands To Describe An Entire Decade

Anonymous — Thu, 8 Mar 2018 12:57:30 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 03/08/2018 17:57

drakonium wrote:

OK but then why not just rank the top 10 artists by sales?

Well, that would work ok but there may be artists who are more archetypal of what was popular than the most popular artists.

Re: You've Only Got 5 Bands To Describe An Entire Decade

bobbyb5 — Thu, 8 Mar 2018 12:52:22 GMT

Author: bobbyb5

Posted: 03/08/2018 17:52

drakonium wrote:

OK but then why not just rank the top 10 artists by sales?

Re: You've Only Got 5 Bands To Describe An Entire Decade

drakonium — Thu, 8 Mar 2018 12:37:33 GMT

Author: drakonium

Posted: 03/08/2018 17:37

OK but then why not just rank the top 10 artists by sales?

Re: You've Only Got 5 Bands To Describe An Entire Decade

bobbyb5 — Thu, 8 Mar 2018 12:12:43 GMT

Author: bobbyb5

Posted: 03/08/2018 17:12

drakonium wrote:

bobbyb5 wrote:

I don't think you guys are quite capturing the full breadth of the 70s . You're leaving out a lot of the big popular genres of the 70s. I know there were lots of them, but 5 isn't enough to capture the full spectrum. Major genres like singer-songwriter and country rock and soft rock and disco aren't very well represented yet. I think you need closer to 10.

Led Zeppelin (metal/hard rock)
Styx. (radio/ arena rock)
Yes (Progressive)
Ramones (punk)
The Cars (new wave)
Donna Summer. (disco)
James Taylor (singer-songwriter/soft rock)
Eagles (country rock)
Boston (mainstream Rock)
The O'Jays (pop soul/ disco)

I mean yeah, you definitely need to include radio rock, country rock, soft rock and mainstream rock on this list! Country was dead, funk never was a genre, electronic music was invented in the 80s, and uh, what is Jamaica already?

Everybody knows that funk, country, reggae and electronic were all good in the 70s. But the thing is, he asked for 5. I did 10, and still couldn't have room for all of them. And the ones I mentioned we're definitely more representative of what people were listening to in the seventies. That's why I chose those ones.

Re: You've Only Got 5 Bands To Describe An Entire Decade

drakonium — Thu, 8 Mar 2018 12:02:54 GMT

Author: drakonium

Posted: 03/08/2018 17:02

bobbyb5 wrote:

Re: You've Only Got 5 Bands To Describe An Entire Decade

Daydreamer — Thu, 8 Mar 2018 08:49:13 GMT

Author: Daydreamer

Posted: 03/08/2018 13:49

Another interesting question came to while reading the discussion about the number of released album by a certain artist in a decade.

I was couple of poster who chose Radiohead as one of the five bands that defined the 00's. While it's true they made more albums in the 00's than in the 90's (4 vs. 3), I still can't help but consider them a primarly 90's band who had good longevity and stayed relevant to this day.