Wat is the best/favourite decade in rock history? (poll close 14th of may)

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Poll Results

Option	Votes
70's	31
80's	21
60's	14
90's	7
00's	6
50's	4

― Zeno, Wednesday, 9 May 2007 22:46 (eighteen years ago)

60s

― Tim Ellison, Wednesday, 9 May 2007 22:53 (eighteen years ago)

'90s = dead last

― Curt1s Stephens, Wednesday, 9 May 2007 22:56 (eighteen years ago)

70's
cause it's like the 60's but with better (and not too slick, like the 80's) sound, and improved ideas.

― Zeno, Wednesday, 9 May 2007 23:02 (eighteen years ago)

curtis otm

― Tim Ellison, Wednesday, 9 May 2007 23:06 (eighteen years ago)

30s but you wouldnt let me vote for it. oh, you mean 'rock'? i dunno

― 696, Wednesday, 9 May 2007 23:10 (eighteen years ago)

The '80s was simultaneously the best and worst decade for rock.

― NYCNative, Wednesday, 9 May 2007 23:26 (eighteen years ago)

'80s for me

― stephen, Wednesday, 9 May 2007 23:26 (eighteen years ago)

US 80s-90s

― SeekAltRoute, Wednesday, 9 May 2007 23:43 (eighteen years ago)

(I voted for '80s obv)

― Curt1s Stephens, Wednesday, 9 May 2007 23:47 (eighteen years ago)

80s, but 60s and 70s come close.

― Geir Hongro, Thursday, 10 May 2007 00:23 (eighteen years ago)

90's...but i should have voted 80's.

― funny farm, Thursday, 10 May 2007 01:08 (eighteen years ago)

There was lots of great jazz albums in the 50s and 60s. But I don't suppose that's why people will vote those years.

― Brigadier Lethbridge-Pfunkboy, Thursday, 10 May 2007 01:23 (eighteen years ago)

60s

― dan selzer, Thursday, 10 May 2007 01:26 (eighteen years ago)

"Rock, when it dies, will be self-slain, murdered by its own past strength."

(Abstaining for now.)

― mark 0, Thursday, 10 May 2007 01:29 (eighteen years ago)

― will, Thursday, 10 May 2007 01:46 (eighteen years ago)

synthesizers! ELO!!

― will, Thursday, 10 May 2007 01:46 (eighteen years ago)

if "Rock" should be more narrowly defined, I'm still thinking 70's.

― will, Thursday, 10 May 2007 01:52 (eighteen years ago)

if 65-75 was an option I'd vote for that, because as a ten year run it's untouchable. so 70s it is then (bk. 75-79 >>>> 60-65)

― Johnny Hotcox, Thursday, 10 May 2007 03:03 (eighteen years ago)

Personally, I see music at its best a run of around five years thing really. My favourite eras in music are 63-68, 72-76, 80-84 and to some extent 94-97.

― Geir Hongro, Thursday, 10 May 2007 08:28 (eighteen years ago)

90's. No time for a convincing case, but it's what I believe.

― Just got offed, Thursday, 10 May 2007 08:58 (eighteen years ago)

OMG I voted the same as Geir!

― Mark G, Thursday, 10 May 2007 09:00 (eighteen years ago)

Zeno do you mean rock as in rock or rock as in "convenient word for all of popular music"? Different answers depending.

― Groke, Thursday, 10 May 2007 09:03 (eighteen years ago)

rock as in rock = there is no good decade for that shit
rock as in the entirety of popular music = 1) please call it POP 2) the answer is always "now"

― lex pretend, Thursday, 10 May 2007 09:04 (eighteen years ago)

I don't agree with either of those things Lex. I think calling it 'pop' is more sensible, but then I would.

― Groke, Thursday, 10 May 2007 09:07 (eighteen years ago)

You know, Lex, if you don't like something then DON'T READ A THREAD ABOUT IT!

― Marcello Carlin, Thursday, 10 May 2007 09:12 (eighteen years ago)

Popular music history would be the correct name. But rock history means it is taken more seriously as an art form, which is good. Pop at its best and rock at its best should both be about creating great art. Just like the classical composers of the 18th and 19th century.

― Geir Hongro, Thursday, 10 May 2007 09:14 (eighteen years ago)

As Bill and Ted teaches us the two are one!

― Groke, Thursday, 10 May 2007 09:14 (eighteen years ago)

You know, Geir, if you don't like something then DON'T READ A THREAD ABOUT IT!

― Marcello Carlin, Thursday, 10 May 2007 09:15 (eighteen years ago)

If we're talking about "rock" music, as in primarily characterised by loud electric guitars, then I'd go with the 1990s. If we're talking about popular music as a whole, then the 1970s.

― mike t-diva, Thursday, 10 May 2007 09:21 (eighteen years ago)

um I'm guess we're generally talking music popularized in the 50's and it's outgrowth? I'll go with 70's - Metal, funk, disco, nascent hip hop, punk & new wave, "country" rock (outlaw stuff & Parsons' CAM), etc, etc

I wouldn't agree with this - funk, disco and hip-hop may have been influenced by rock, but they still have different lineages from rock, and putting them under the label "rock" doesn't do justice to their own histories. I agree with Lex that if we're talking about popular music, we should call it pop or just popular music. Rock is still a definite genre.

― Tuomas, Thursday, 10 May 2007 09:25 (eighteen years ago)

Obviously, if only rock, in its narrowest sense, counts, then I'd go for something else than the 80s (guitar based rock in the 80s mostly sucked), probably the 60s or 70s.

The 90s don't quite make it anyway, considering all the good music from the 90s was basically recycling styles from the 60s, 70s and/or 80s.

― Geir Hongro, Thursday, 10 May 2007 09:30 (eighteen years ago)

i'm starting to develop this real fear of the 90's. it used to be just the horrors of the 97-99 era, but after a 1996 recent poll i'm realising that the entire back half was crap. and it scares me.

can you have an official phobia of a certain decade?

― pisces, Thursday, 10 May 2007 09:40 (eighteen years ago)

you sure you're not mixing up the '90s with Sanchez's Fulham squad?

― Marcello Carlin, Thursday, 10 May 2007 09:41 (eighteen years ago)

I vote for the 00s. All the good stuff from the other decades is still there to listen to, and there are new things happening all the time. Also there is the internet, which means you don't have to spend a fortune just to find out what things sound like.

― braveclub, Thursday, 10 May 2007 09:46 (eighteen years ago)

Which is more or less what David Hepworth was arguing in The Word last month, i.e. that this is the Best Time For Music Ever.

― mike t-diva, Thursday, 10 May 2007 09:49 (eighteen years ago)

I don't agree with either of those things Lex. I think calling it 'pop' is more sensible, but then I would.

which do you think is the best decade, tom? i'm surprised that you disagree with that - it seems to me that one of the essences of popular music is its emphasis on what's happening now. ticking any box other than 00s would be an admission of defeat, to me.

― lex pretend, Thursday, 10 May 2007 09:49 (eighteen years ago)

and of course in four years time i would tick the 10s box!

― lex pretend, Thursday, 10 May 2007 09:50 (eighteen years ago)

Except this isn't about popular music - it's about ROCK.

I'm not inclined to cast a vote at this time since I'm not sure how I feel about "rock" or indeed "rock history."

Slight diversion: that upcoming BBC2 Seven Ages Of Rock series certainly depresses me. Why won't they do Seven Ages Of Pop? I could get going on it Monday, with scripts.

Anyway, back to topic.

― Marcello Carlin, Thursday, 10 May 2007 09:52 (eighteen years ago)

What upcoming BBC2 series? I will look it up.

Lex I sympathise with that position and I've pushed it myself in the past. I'm enjoying music now, I love hearing new stuff, I think it's really good - that doesn't mean I think it's my favourite or 'best' time though.

― Groke, Thursday, 10 May 2007 10:23 (eighteen years ago)

OMG SEVEN AGES OF ROCK

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/music/article1736627.ece

― Groke, Thursday, 10 May 2007 10:34 (eighteen years ago)

No Led Zep makes the whole thing a total embarrassment. This what happens when you get no-nothing middle class trendies creating TV - they are driven by what is cool not what is factual. A whole episode on Punk is a complete joke too - the British Music Media are obsessed with Punk, when in effect it was just a fleeting fashion. All the bands that were supposed to be swept away just carried on selling millions of millions of albums (Floyd,Rush<Genesis,Yes et al - check the stats if you dont nelieve me) without being featured in the music press. If anything Punk killed the Music press - where are Sounds, Melody Maker, Record Mirror and Smash Hits now?

― Dom Passantino, Thursday, 10 May 2007 10:37 (eighteen years ago)

GET THAT GUY HERE NOW

― Dom Passantino, Thursday, 10 May 2007 10:38 (eighteen years ago)

I'd argue against that viewpoint, but then I would.

― Mark G, Thursday, 10 May 2007 10:38 (eighteen years ago)

In defence of this programme, it's made by the same people who did Soul Deep, so it's not as if it's "WHITE MAN ROCK SUPREMACY NOW".

― Dom Passantino, Thursday, 10 May 2007 10:43 (eighteen years ago)

Oh I see: That's a quote from someone else on the weblink. xpost. ah they can leave out LedZep for me.

So, the programme on the sixties focusses on Jimi Hendrix and uses the Beatles as secondary.

― Mark G, Thursday, 10 May 2007 10:45 (eighteen years ago)

Different perspective, if nothing else.

Maybe ITV should just rerun Tony Palmer's All You Need Is Love series, if we're talking Actual 1977.

― Marcello Carlin, Thursday, 10 May 2007 10:49 (eighteen years ago)

Mark that is their exciting fresh angle on the 60s!

Yeah the programme isn't pretending to be a comprehensive music history or anything, so fair do's, but when even the programme maker admits that "this cultural corpse has been picked clean" it doesn't exactly bode well for gripping viewing.

― Groke, Thursday, 10 May 2007 10:51 (eighteen years ago)

I'll save all the shows to DVD for Alice and Amber.

― Mark G, Thursday, 10 May 2007 10:54 (eighteen years ago)

RIP Jimmy Page.

― Dom Passantino, Thursday, 10 May 2007 10:57 (eighteen years ago)

Noooo! No cueing of lots of JP music!

― Mark G, Thursday, 10 May 2007 10:58 (eighteen years ago)

just to clear things out - i meant rock as a rock - you know,guitars and stuff.
cause thats what mostly interest me.
if i'd say "music" i should have included the whole histoy of human existence.
and "pop" is also too general, and i think theres no point for asking about "pop" cause all answers are right on that case.theres always some interesting development in some area at any point of time.

― Zeno, Thursday, 10 May 2007 10:59 (eighteen years ago)

Thanks Zeno! OK, 50s or 60s then.

― Groke, Thursday, 10 May 2007 11:00 (eighteen years ago)

ok i prefer this being about 'rock' as a genre, than being a stand in for popular music.

this also means i dont have to wish there was a 30s option

normally i would have gone for 66-68, but 71-75 has come fast on the inside. i have not voted yet

― 696, Thursday, 10 May 2007 11:20 (eighteen years ago)

I'm still abstaining, for now.

rock as in rock = there is no good decade for that shit
rock as in the entirety of popular music = 1) please call it POP 2) the answer is always "now"

Lex 8077; it's all pop. Perry Como, Ciara, GG Allin, and Led Zep. There are differences in personae, technology, marketing, methodology, etc., but it's all pop.

And pop sucks equally in every decade -- we all have our own personal faves, but in every era, for every performer enriching the artform, there are dozens who merely pretend they are (or have fans who do); for each one of them, there are dozens who simply want to aggregate as many pairs of ears as they can, by any means necessary, in hopes of cashing in. That every genuine spark (e.g. Elvis, Beatles, Nirvana, Woodstock...) soon hardens into genres and brand names makes it that much easier to cash in. Pop is always the same mixed blessing.

(And Lex, when you're 10-20 years more pop-jaded, I doubt you'll be saying the answer is always "now".)

― mark 0, Thursday, 10 May 2007 19:27 (eighteen years ago)

uh there's lots of rock that isn't pop, unless by pop you mean "music"

― pretzel walrus, Thursday, 10 May 2007 19:30 (eighteen years ago)

Mark there is an incredible gap between "sucking" and "enriching the artform"!

(And self-identifying as an artform - which pop or even rock haven't always done - is a way of "cashing in" as surely as self-identifying as fashion and trash is)

― Groke, Thursday, 10 May 2007 19:37 (eighteen years ago)

― mark 0, Thursday, 10 May 2007 19:38 (eighteen years ago)

Actually the point in my parenthesis is one you've already made with the "merely pretend", kind of, so ignore that!

― Groke, Thursday, 10 May 2007 19:41 (eighteen years ago)

But I still wish the word "artform" wd be banned from music criticism forever.

― Groke, Thursday, 10 May 2007 19:42 (eighteen years ago)

And self-identifying as an artform - which pop or even rock haven't always done - is a way of "cashing in" as surely as self-identifying as fashion and trash is

I identified it as an artform, but I doubt Cole Porter or Brian Wilson would have during their primes, for instance. But certainly self-identifying as art/artform is a long-standing marketing tactic, even before The Age of Rock.

― mark 0, Thursday, 10 May 2007 19:43 (eighteen years ago)

i take the 70s just because you get some of the good stuff going on in the 60s right in the beginning of the 70s, then a bunch of awesome 70s stuff, and then punk and hip hop and disco start happening right at the end.

― M@tt He1ges0n, Thursday, 10 May 2007 19:45 (eighteen years ago)

No, it's all "popular music", often called by its nickname, "pop". I don't consider Shostakovich and Palestrina to be pop. But Bing Crosby, (much of) Duke Ellington, SunnO))), and Collective Soul are pop.

sunn has a lot more in common with non-pop music (to use yr definition - i don't really think of them as a rock band myself) than they do with bing, dude!

― pretzel walrus, Thursday, 10 May 2007 19:49 (eighteen years ago)

I rest my case.

― mark 0, Thursday, 10 May 2007 19:56 (eighteen years ago)

If anything Punk killed the Music press - where are Sounds, Melody Maker, Record Mirror and Smash Hits now?

How was Punk (77-78) responsible for the death of Sounds/Record Mirror (early 90's), MM (2000) and Smash Hits (2005)?

― Billy Dods, Thursday, 10 May 2007 20:03 (eighteen years ago)

xp - you do that. while these might all be styles from the same vague amorphous blob of "popular music" (hi dere misnomer), it's a little silly to pretend that there aren't fundamentally different aesthetics at play.

― pretzel walrus, Thursday, 10 May 2007 20:08 (eighteen years ago)

I already addressed that: "There are differences in personae, technology, marketing, methodology, etc., but it's all pop."

The vague amorphous blob of popular music is going to be different, depending on time and place -- it stands for something different in Detroit in 1934 than it does in Atlanta in 2007, but not counting SunnO))) and Bing Crosby as equally pop is nonsense. Crosby in 1928 and SunnO))) in 2007 are doing the same thing (trying to aggregate as many pairs of ears as possible, via venues, the airwaves, disc retailers), but of course the aesthetics are different. In 1928 we didn't have the notion of selling unpopular pop (that came with rock, and especially since punk), for instance, or of aesthetics being part of the marketing.

― mark 0, Thursday, 10 May 2007 20:24 (eighteen years ago)

Take the case of Joanna Newsom, whom I love and admire: Ys was bound to leak because there was going to be months and months between the completion of the album and its meatspace release. Why would there have to be months and months? To coordinate the release with the marketing -- the tour, the magazine cover stories, etc. Just like Ne-Yo or Usher. This is the workings of pop, in my lifetime at least.

However exalted your faves are, however "revolutionary" and "transcendant" they are, they're still pop.

― mark 0, Thursday, 10 May 2007 20:32 (eighteen years ago)

ok i sorta disagree with virtually everything you just said, but to say that aesthetics weren't part of marketing in 1928 or is flat out wrong - the aesthetics of what's being sold have ALWAYS been a part of marketing.

also: In 1928 we didn't have the notion of selling unpopular pop

actually it'd been around for decades already, w/the cherry sisters and i'm sure about eight billion acts before then.

― pretzel walrus, Thursday, 10 May 2007 20:34 (eighteen years ago)

i mean i'm just saying the definition you're using for "pop" is so meaningless as to be nonexistent

― pretzel walrus, Thursday, 10 May 2007 20:38 (eighteen years ago)

Meh, It's all music.

― Brigadier Lethbridge-Pfunkboy, Thursday, 10 May 2007 20:43 (eighteen years ago)

i mean that is actually true! it's just not all pop music.

― pretzel walrus, Thursday, 10 May 2007 20:45 (eighteen years ago)

and i'm not operating under the assumption that my favorite music is revolutionary or transcendent or whatever

― pretzel walrus, Thursday, 10 May 2007 20:46 (eighteen years ago)

xposts

Prior to there being a cable channel or radio station or record company or venue for "every" niche, I think the aesthetic aspects were a lot simpler -- the notion of broadcast "family entertainment" is a relic of the days when a family had to share one TV (or radio), for instance. The notion of a "youth market" slowly gained traction from the swing era onward, and now we have vertically-integrated Radio Disney, etc.

Records in 1928 were probably sold in a generic brown sleeve -- no Hipgnosis artwork, no Hype Williams video. The "counterculture" was white folks buying "race records"; rock brought us a deluge of different kinds of "countercultural" or "underground" marketing unthinkable in 1928 or 1945 or even 1964. And it all turned out to be just a bunch of marketing niches.

But it's all pop (quickie top-of-my-head definition: music sold by or through the entertainment industry, whether mom-and-pop or transnational or somewhere in between). La Monte Young is probably not pop.

― mark 0, Thursday, 10 May 2007 20:58 (eighteen years ago)

http://www.stayfreemagazine.org/images/15/music/the_man.jpg

― mark 0, Thursday, 10 May 2007 21:10 (eighteen years ago)

(From Columbia Records, home of Tony Bennett, Andy Williams, and Santana.)

― mark 0, Thursday, 10 May 2007 21:13 (eighteen years ago)

...and Terry Riley.

― mark 0, Thursday, 10 May 2007 21:15 (eighteen years ago)

i can buy la monte young, bing, sunn and shostakovitch records through amazon.com. does this make them all pop? your definition is so broad, might as well just replace "pop" with "music," y'know? i don't see how you're making these differentiations.

(also, i think someone's on a marissa tip w/r/t la monte - $895 for the well-tuned piano 81 X 25, 6:17:50 - 11:18:59 pm nyc?)

― pretzel walrus, Thursday, 10 May 2007 21:17 (eighteen years ago)

I think the answer to the thread question is pretty clearly the '70s.

― o. nate, Thursday, 10 May 2007 21:18 (eighteen years ago)

i can buy la monte young, bing, sunn and shostakovitch records through amazon.com. does this make them all pop?

The internet levels the retail playing field.

Go to your nearest meatspace retailer and try to buy The Well-Tuned Piano, a recording of Shostakovich's piano music not by Keith Jarrett (and note that Shostakovich didn't write his Preludes and Fugues for album release), a CD of Crosby's work with Paul Whiteman, and anything by SunnO))).

How easy was it? What's getting the prominent display space in that store?

― mark 0, Thursday, 10 May 2007 21:27 (eighteen years ago)

I'm not denying there are blurs and contradictions.

Keith Jarrett, a "jazz" pianist and "classical" composer, is also a pop star. Leonard Bernstein was also on Columbia Records, home of Andy Williams, etc. Gregorian chant makes the hit parade, etc.

But my original point was: rock (no matter how outre, or how unpopular it may be in the local shopping mall) is just a set of manifestations of "popular music", and we experience it as products of the entertainment industry. SunnO))) and Nabob'n'Rabob, while separated by decades, mindset, and aesthetic from Cab Calloway and Frankie Laine, are pop. Are showbiz. They are a lot closer to each other than they are to, say, Harry Partch or La Monte Young, even if they're all equal in the eyes of the amazon.com database or your iPod.

― mark 0, Thursday, 10 May 2007 22:12 (eighteen years ago)

Seems pretty much like Pop III from this blog post - and yeah that's pretty much the definition I go with.

― ledge, Thursday, 10 May 2007 22:18 (eighteen years ago)

dude you keep mentioning everything except how they actually sound!

― pretzel walrus, Thursday, 10 May 2007 22:23 (eighteen years ago)

just to clear things out - i meant rock as a rock - you know,guitars and stuff.

OK, discount my vote for the 80s then. Rock in the 80s was either boring corporate American AOR, laughable naff and terrible hair metal or underproduced underground stuff with way too much reverb, way too little use of stereo separation and the vocals mixed way too behind in the mix

Not too big on rock at all, but strangely I think I'd go for the 90s. I'm not a fan of the 90s at all (90s pop was either unmelodic crap or just copying classic pop from earlier decade), but things were happening in 90s rock when acts managed to combine a rock style with good melodies and a proper, somewhat polished, production and proper stereo effects.

― Geir Hongro, Thursday, 10 May 2007 22:26 (eighteen years ago)

xp - if you think they function socially as pop music, ok, in many contexts i can agree with that (still no reason why that would apply to sunn and not la monte though - just redefine your parameters). but on a musical level it doesn't really hold up.

― pretzel walrus, Thursday, 10 May 2007 22:27 (eighteen years ago)

And if you count Green Day, My Chemical Romance, Avril Lavigne and Pink as rock, I may well go for the 00s as the best rock decade too.

― Geir Hongro, Thursday, 10 May 2007 22:28 (eighteen years ago)

why wouldn't green day and my chemical romance count as rock?

― M@tt He1ges0n, Thursday, 10 May 2007 22:32 (eighteen years ago)

dude you keep mentioning everything except how they actually sound!

Sound is almost irrelevant. Sound and its meanings change over time. Sound can be a marker of time or place or subculture, and it differentiates one artist from another, one niche from another, but that has little to do with my argument, especially since rock/pop/whatever is part music, part sound, part performance art, part fashion, part business/marketing, etc.

Ever since we dropped the "'n roll", there's been this false notion that "rock" was somehow better than and outside of "pop", as if rock had completely seceded from the entertainment industry and from showbiz. That never happened; we create new stars, new moguls as time passes, but it's still the same entertainment industry that brought us Jolson and G-Unit.

― mark 0, Thursday, 10 May 2007 22:40 (eighteen years ago)

(ledge: thanks for the link.)

― mark 0, Thursday, 10 May 2007 22:48 (eighteen years ago)

60s. Easily.

― Drooone, Thursday, 10 May 2007 22:52 (eighteen years ago)

For the emergence of great artists, it's the 60s. But for sheer volume of great records, it's the 70s.

― kornrulez6969, Thursday, 10 May 2007 22:54 (eighteen years ago)

http://www.hyzercreek.com/hoyhoy/dawn_of_rock.htm

― PappaWheelie V, Thursday, 10 May 2007 23:08 (eighteen years ago)

xp - in the interests of not rehashing the same popism debate that's been rererehashed on ilm for years now, lemme just say this: a) persecution complex much? nobody said anything about false notions of rock being "better" (outside of pop, which it isn't always or even most of the time != better than pop), and b) you get back to me when your ears can't tell the real, measurable, musical differences between bing crosby and sunn. and then you should probably go see yr otorhinolaryngologist.

― pretzel walrus, Thursday, 10 May 2007 23:14 (eighteen years ago)

persecution complex much?

I don't understand.

nobody said anything about false notions of rock being "better" (outside of pop, which it isn't always or even most of the time != better than pop)

I don't understand.

Nobody in the last 42 years has ever made pains to differentiate "rock" as better than (and in some way separate from) "pop"?

you get back to me when your ears can't tell the real, measurable, musical differences between bing crosby and sunn.

Is there a typo here? The differences are obvious (as is the space of about 80 years) and, as stated above, irrelevant to my argument. They're both, in their respective eras, in showbiz. One transitions to radio and motion pictures, the other transitions to the cover of The Wire, eventually. While the former got rich enough to own a piece of a major league sports franchise, the latter will settle for season tickets. For what it's worth, they both rocked, in their day.

― mark 0, Thursday, 10 May 2007 23:25 (eighteen years ago)

best/favourite decade in rock history = from when you're 10 to when you're 20. 80s.

― mrlynch, Friday, 11 May 2007 00:38 (eighteen years ago)

best/favourite decade in rock history = from when you're 10 to when you're 20.

This is the reasoning that in my heart, I choose the 90's. This is also ILM, so I don't want to seem to have owned a Bush album. 80's it is, then.

― Gukbe, Friday, 11 May 2007 00:43 (eighteen years ago)

guys guys guys there is SO MUCH incredible rock from the 90's that far outstrips what came before. fair enough if you prefer earlier stuff, but for me the watershed came around the time of Talk Talk's fruition. after that, bands realised that any sound was within their grasp, any texture was possible, and they began to reach higher and higher within the parameters of 'rock'. that comment about 'bush' being a typical 90's rock group just saddens me. on the one hand we had shoegaze, on the other post-rock, on the other we had stuff like Blur and Spiritualized and The Boo Radleys and SFA, then we had old-time rockers gone all weird and modern, like Soundgarden (who kicked more ass than just about every previous heavy-metal band I've heard, no really), we had sonic youth's 'washing machine' which is clearly a lot better than 'daydream nation' (no, it is), we had Beck, we had The Boredoms (I mean SRSLY), we had Levitation, we had Earth, Neurosis, Godflesh, and other great experimental metal bands, then we had the Flaming Lips (their 90's albums are GREAT), we had MERCURY FUCKING REV (whose first two albums do 'noise-pop' better than ANYONE), we had the rise and rise of Foetus ('Flow' is IMO a lot better than the earlier 'Nail'), we had Lusk, we had ORBITAL who weren't really rock but FUCK WE HAD ORBITAL ORBITAL ORBITAL and a load of other SUPREME electronic artists (Plaid, Aphex Twin etc), then we had Radiohead (I don't care what you say, they are revered for a fucking good reason), we had Scott Walker's 'Tilt' to keep us on our toes, we had Six By Seven, The Beta Band....

basically, the 90's absolutely slayed everything else. although the 00's might come quite close to matching them. may even surpass. music is improving, music is always improving, and david hepworth is right. nothing saddens me more than those stuck in some sort of mythical 'heyday' when everyone played the blues. sorry to simplify, and i know that last comment will raise ire aplenty (like OMG PAULINE OLIVEIROS WAS EXPERIMENTING WITH OSCILLATORS TWENTY YEARS BEFORE REAL ELECTRONIC MUSIC) but seriously, however great some of the compositions were, their ambition and scope was later to be utterly dwarfed.

next best after 90's and 00's? easy. 80's. by a street.

― Just got offed, Friday, 11 May 2007 03:39 (eighteen years ago)

xxp - nobody on this thread has made any such claims about the superiority of rock to pop, and it seems weird to me that you're bringing these biases onto a thread that is by name about rock.

and neither bing nor sunn really rock in any musical sense, which, yeah, call me crazy, but is important to keep in mind when you're talking about...music. fine, they're both in showbiz. rock and showbiz are terms from different lexicons. by your definition (and probably mine!), everyone who makes music is in showbiz. and?

i guess i'm still not really sure what your argument is other than that everything we're discussing is music, and recorded copies of that music are sold, and everyone who records and sells that music is operating in the same basic industry. right, of course i agree with that. water = wet.

― pretzel walrus, Friday, 11 May 2007 04:02 (eighteen years ago)

hm no not totally different lexicons, but "showbiz" is sort of a meaningless blanket umbrella here. rock is a peer to hip-hop, jazz, country, disco etc. it's a musical term, and the fact that it's been sorta misappropriated as a cultural one is not fair to it or the genres that get wrongly absorbed into its narrative.

― pretzel walrus, Friday, 11 May 2007 04:08 (eighteen years ago)

hey wait is that last dude louis?

― pretzel walrus, Friday, 11 May 2007 04:19 (eighteen years ago)

that last dude has been drinking, whoever he/she is

― Just got offed, Friday, 11 May 2007 04:24 (eighteen years ago)

has to be...the idea that music "improves", *yuk*...very louis

― Frogman Henry, Friday, 11 May 2007 07:38 (eighteen years ago)

I'll take the SixSixSixties over the Sixties any day.

― Drew Daniel, Friday, 11 May 2007 07:41 (eighteen years ago)

what was top of teh pops in 666?

― Frogman Henry, Friday, 11 May 2007 07:44 (eighteen years ago)

Tom Jones, Val Doonican and the Seekers.

― Marcello Carlin, Friday, 11 May 2007 07:46 (eighteen years ago)

blimey music really doesn't improve.

― Frogman Henry, Friday, 11 May 2007 07:49 (eighteen years ago)

fair enough if you prefer earlier stuff, but for me the watershed came around the time of Talk Talk's fruition. after that, bands realised that any sound was within their grasp, any texture was possible, and they began to reach higher and higher within the parameters of 'rock'.

This is what is wrong with the 90s IMO. There ought to be some rather narrow boundaries that everyone has to stay within. That's what makes music a particular craft that is to be learned, not just something that anyone can do.

― Geir Hongro, Friday, 11 May 2007 08:45 (eighteen years ago)

1920s pwnz

― Mike McGooney-gal, Friday, 11 May 2007 08:50 (eighteen years ago)

30s is better than 20s just, but its not rock though!

if just got offed isnt louis i'll eat somebody elses hat

― 696, Friday, 11 May 2007 09:58 (eighteen years ago)

Jimmie Lunceford ROCKED!

― Marcello Carlin, Friday, 11 May 2007 10:00 (eighteen years ago)

No. Apparently no-one ever rocked until a certified rock star did it.

rock is a peer to hip-hop, jazz, country, disco etc. it's a musical term, and the fact that it's been sorta misappropriated as a cultural one is not fair to it or the genres that get wrongly absorbed into its narrative.

Hemiola and ritardando are musical terms; rock/hip-hop/jazz/etc. are less musical terms than cultural and marketing terms. They denote various (often intersecting) streams of popular musics over the decades. If I say "play me a disco beat", you'll probably understand what I'm asking you, but that's because the word "disco" had a strong-enough existence as a cultural/marketing term.

― mark 0, Friday, 11 May 2007 10:31 (eighteen years ago)

rock is a peer to hip-hop, jazz, country, disco etc. it's a musical term, and the fact that it's been sorta misappropriated as a cultural one is not fair to it or the genres that get wrongly absorbed into its narrative.

So which musical term fits best to describe "Miss You" or "I Was Made For Loving You" then? Rock or disco?

― Geir Hongro, Friday, 11 May 2007 11:59 (eighteen years ago)

And, given that pop is used as meaning "anything that isn't rock". How about Prefab Sprout? Were they rock? And if not, I guess they must be some kind of pop, but then what kind, considering there is no such thing as "pure pop" (you'd probably count classic pop acts such as Beatles and Beach Boys as "rock" after all)? Are they R&B? Disco? Hip-Hop? Electronica? Dance?

― Geir Hongro, Friday, 11 May 2007 12:01 (eighteen years ago)

xp - but these are terms that do refer to real, identifiable sounds and musical styles. i mean regardless of its origins, you do know what a disco beat is! why isn't it fair to say that stuff that doesn't rock (like the folks you've referenced in your arguments) isn't rock?

― pretzel walrus, Friday, 11 May 2007 12:23 (eighteen years ago)

and geir i don't know anything about prefab sprout so i can't say much there. re: disco songs by rock dudes, there's no reason you can't play disco beats in a rocking way (stones do a pretty good job of this, ac/dc do a better one) and have material that functions as both.

― pretzel walrus, Friday, 11 May 2007 12:34 (eighteen years ago)

If you'd asked a drummer on one of the earliest disco recordings to "play me a disco beat", you would have gotten a blank stare. There is no "a disco beat"; there were a variety of beats played on records marketed as "disco"; there were a variety of disco beats played on records marketed as "rock". There was "country disco", once upon a time.

I could plausibly define "a disco beat" that would make Chick Webb fit the definition of a disco drummer. Dave Clark's drumming on "Bits and Pieces" (are the DC5 "rock" or "pop"?) isn't all that far removed from the drumming on Amii Stewart's ("disco") "Knock On Wood".

NP: Talking Heads, "Slippery People"

― mark 0, Friday, 11 May 2007 13:07 (eighteen years ago)

The disco beat is a straight 4/4 beat. Other stuff may be construed as disco, but if there's the slightest bit of syncopation in the main beat, it's funk not disco.

― Geir Hongro, Friday, 11 May 2007 13:12 (eighteen years ago)

A straight 4/4 beat is a march.

Disco has a less accentuated 1/8th beat added at least.

― Mark G, Friday, 11 May 2007 13:15 (eighteen years ago)

xp - i don't see why that's a problem at all; you could plausibly make a case for the DC5 as both rock and pop, and that they played at least a few disco-like songs. these aren't mutually exclusive terms. i mean there's a ton of music that came before rock that in retrospect can be seen as rocking, even if it's not aware of itself as such.

― pretzel walrus, Friday, 11 May 2007 13:28 (eighteen years ago)

Dave Clark Five had hits with "Good Old Rock 'N' Roll" and "More Good Old Rock 'N' Roll" so that settles that then.

― Marcello Carlin, Friday, 11 May 2007 15:15 (eighteen years ago)

haha hi louis!!

― Curt1s Stephens, Friday, 11 May 2007 16:37 (eighteen years ago)

if i am he, then hi! :-D

― Just got offed, Friday, 11 May 2007 16:46 (eighteen years ago)

SHOW US YR (FAKE) TITS

― Mr. Que, Friday, 11 May 2007 16:47 (eighteen years ago)

play nice, ilx

― Just got offed, Friday, 11 May 2007 16:48 (eighteen years ago)

Can't choose between the '70s and the '80's. I'd have picked the '20s, if the option had been offered.

― Pashmina, Friday, 11 May 2007 16:51 (eighteen years ago)

70's here we go

― Zeno, Monday, 14 May 2007 15:35 (eighteen years ago)

The disco beat is a straight 4/4 beat. Other stuff may be construed as disco, but if there's the slightest bit of syncopation in the main beat, it's funk not disco.

-- Geir Hongro, Friday, May 11, 2007 9:12 AM (3 days ago)

Haha, by this definition I don't think there's a single real disco song in existence.

― Hurting 2, Monday, 14 May 2007 16:41 (eighteen years ago)

This poll sucks.

― billstevejim, Monday, 14 May 2007 17:00 (eighteen years ago)

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