Name an act whose work best sums up a musical decade

I don't know if this topic has any legs, but it may be a fun diversion.

Every time I hear '70s Chicago, it occurs to me that they're probably the band that best sums up that decade (to the extent that any single act could be said to do as much). They certainly don't cover all of the bases, and sure, they're pretty MOR, but their sound is broad enough that their work during the '70s feels like a more effective summary of what music in general sounded like during that decade than any other single '70s act that I can think of. And I'm hard-pressed to think of an act from another decade that pulls off quite the same trick (maybe like Beck for the '90s?).

Does it make sense, this amorphous question I'm posing?

britney

I guess Prince has a body of work diverse enough to be an effective précis for the '80s. Kinda feel like something's missing from the stew, though (hair metal, super-square mid-decade middle-aged white dude pop).

Gloria Estefan, duh

Hildegard of Bingen

Except she didn't write any secular music as far as I can tell.

I asked almost the same question as this a few years ago, funnily enough:

Bands that perfectly represent decades

When I think 'eighties music' I think of ABC or Human League

Chicago's a good choice for the '70s, although I tuned out after about '74--did they pass through a disco phase? Any definitive '70s band should have a disco-sounding song or two towards the end of the decade, even if--Kiss, Pink Floyd--they would never have admitted as much. Obvious choice, but Rod Stewart works well: starts as a post-Dylan singer-songwriter, gets trashier, ends with disco.

This is kind of an 'instant association' thing, isn't it? Like, when I think of '2000s music' I think of Grizzly Bear (who I really don't like at all) . 60s music The Lovin' Spoonful. 70s music, Sly & the Family Stone. 90s music... uhh the KLF?

And that's even though a lot of those acts had their biggest moments in the preceding or succeeding decade.

Every time I hear '70s Chicago,

You wouldn't be American by any chance?

Chicago's a good choice for the '70s, although I tuned out after about '74--did they pass through a disco phase? Any definitive '70s band should have a disco-sounding song or two towards the end of the decade

Street Player off Chicago 13 was their big disco tune and was obviously later sampled by the Bucketheads

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJMw8cUGjwI

Good thread, anagram, but not quite what I'm after. I'm thinking, like...if some whippersnapper who'd never heard any music from the '60s wanted to know what music from that decade sounded like, which artist's collective '60s work would best represent the broad spectrum of different sounds that were happening in the '60s?

The '60s are difficult because of the before-and-after benchmark of 1964. If you decide not to go with the Beatles (or Rolling Stones) themselves--'50s big beat to Top-40 heyday to psychedelic to "roots/back-to-basics/please give me a better term...", I don't know who you'd point to. The Supremes start in a different place but basically follow a similar path.

Same as the eighties. The difference between, I dunno, Bad Manners and NKOTB is huuuuge

70s Bowie kinda covers a lot doesn't it

90s Beck is a good choice

Yes--forgot about Bowie. A few contenders, but definitely the best '70s choice. (And I'm not a huge fan.)

I guess an alternate (albeit surely controversial) response to the question posed itt is a later act which appropriated enough of a prior decade's tropes that they retroactively fit the bill.

90's: Blur. 00's: Animal Collective.

roxy music for the 70's

sure they had elements that spilled in from the tail-end of the 60's (like eno's tape manipulation) but they also traversed everything from blues to noise rock to glam to disco (both ends burning). A band as forward thinking as backwards, one of their greatest feats was how they could open doors to the past just as much as the future (see grey gardens/amazonia).

Sparks may be even a better 70's answer than Bowie - they did power pop on their first two, moved to glam/prog for the next three, bounced off skinny tie Cars-style New Wave and AOR radio-friendly pop, then wound up collaborating with Moroder to make a disco album at the end of the decade.

'70s: Yes, Floyd, or Zeppelin

I think Madonna covers the 90's pretty soundly too - house music, R&B, electronica, ballads. Too bad no grunge record

I feel like any legit contender for the '70s needs to have figured out a way to shoehorn a little funk/soul/fusion/country rock into their sound, however weak the tea of their appropriation may be.

(NB, any act that fully embraced the criteria set forth itt would almost certainly be truly terrible and largely incoherent.)

Cornelius in the 90's, if you count that last Flipper's Guitar album

'We're kind of a disco/free jazz/glam ensemble, influenced in equal parts by Styx, Gong, Crass, and George McCrae.'

Wait, did I say terrible?

Decades are tough not just because of 1964, but because movements haven't looked at the calendar. And, oddly, I think it may help to exclude the major talents who are sui generis (Elvis / James Brown / Beatles / Hendrix / Stones / Zep / Who / Prince / Madonna / Nirvana). They mostly sounded like themselves, and everybody else either sounded like them or didn't. They show the peaks of achievement, not where the crowd was. IME.

Would half-decades work better? I might feel more comfortable taking a stab at 5-year periods like, I dunno:

1955-1960: Buddy Holly
1960-1965: Chubby Checker
1965-1970: Kinks
1970-1975: Allman Brothers
1975-1980: Bee Gees
1980-1985: Duran Duran
1985-1990: Whitney Houston
1990-1995: Pearl Jam

zep / floyd / yes are all neatly contained in the '70s, either pretty much breaking up or broken altogether before the next decade really gets going. (though starting with drama (1980) trevor horn arguably defined the '80s . . .)

Bowie: singer-songwriter (more Anthony Newly than Jackson Browne...), glam (verging on metal? I'll let someone else make that call), Philly Soul, art/electronica/whatever, disco, new wave.

(I don't really get the Allman Brothers, YMP--weren't they as anchored in one genre, Southern Rock, as you could be? Unless Southern Rock chops up a few different ways.)

70s: George Clinton
80s: Prince

'00s - girl talk, duh

Caribou really encapsulates something about the 00s for me,

Okay, let's up the ante here: how about reducing it to a single song?

My '70s nomination:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPlSV5WmBfA

I think my possible answers for the 2000s are P!nk, solo Gwen Stefani, and The Black Eyed Peas.

Jay-Z is another one I thought of for the 2000s since he worked with a lot of producers whose sounds really defined that decade like Neptunes, Timbaland, Kanye West, Just Blaze, Eminem, and even put out an album with Linkin Park.

One song for the '70s: "Surrender."

One for the 90's: "Super Bon Bon"

peter gabriel covered some ground in the 80s

a VERY small-scale mid-'90s one could be Madder Rose

50s miles davis
60s miles davis
70s miles davis

the man who sold the world to scary monsters is pretty amazing when you think about it. that's a whole lotta decade.

Is the question in this thread "which band had a sound most representative of that decade" or "or which band combined the most sounds of that decade in their output?" Because folks are doing both.

The latter was my intention, but whatever, have a party.

post correction: grey lagoons not grey gardens

The Monkees are pretty representative of the '60s. they did both the mainstream tv bubblegum pop thing and the psychedelic garage thing, oftentimes on the same records.

i dunno, nothing sums up the 60's more than Revolver to me.

^ yup

idk james brown kinda summed up the 60s with a single song, "papa's got a brand new bag"

robert palmer forecast/mirrored mid 70s to 90 as well as you could, but i don't know that he sums up?

"papa's got a brand new bag"

i mean, i can hear the beatles and miles davis and the who and the four tops and the supremes and the shangri-las and bob dylan and so much more inside those two minutes.

Also, the sixties were the decade where men started carrying handbags.

håndtaske is danish for handbag

https://i.pinimg.com/736x/80/b3/fc/80b3fc620bbe8371fe4b2933a5838fc0--cale-the-velvet-underground.jpg

håndtaske is danish for handbag

― mookieproof, 5. januar 2018 23:57 (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Earlier today I couldn't log on ilx for some reason, and I seriously thought that joke had gotten me 51'd... I was a bit drunk yesterday.

idk james brown kinda summed up the 60s with a single song, "papa's got a brand new bag"

― fact checking cuz, Friday, January 5, 2018 5:15 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

hell yes. would vote for JB.

Alanis Morisette for the 90s.

That's a ____________ choice. (Fill in some word that never turns up in real conversation, just on an Alanis Morissette lyric sheet.)

I still believe the eighties were never more distilled down into one song/video more than in this example

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIs5StN8J-0

The Cure

Kanye nails the second half of the 00s imo.

Honestly all of the aughts, especially if you include production work

That's a ____________ choice. (Fill in some word that never turns up in real conversation, just on an Alanis Morissette lyric sheet.)

― clemenza, Sunday, January 7, 2018 3:45 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

mm i'm going to go with "cellularly"

xp Kanye absolutely defines all of the 00s

Look at producers

1990-1995: Spin Doctors

The entire '90s are obviously contained within Hobo Humpin' Slobo Babe.

20s: Louis Armstrong's Hot Five & Hot Seven

90s definitely some risible dance/heavy rock crossover like Apollo 440's 'Ain't Talking About Dub'.

Crap thread.