What's your favorite artist from each decade, starting in the 60s?

I was thinking of this yesterday, although not so much in terms of favorite as much as in terms of artists' whose work during a given decade best approaches encapsulating that decade. Prompted by listening to a bunch of Prince stuff, of course. His run of 80s albums contains so much - both in terms of musical styles and genres covered or touched upon as much as the overall subject matter and aesthetics - and his output reflect the times so well. It has the panicky hedonism, the apocalyptic eschatology (both religious and sexual), the 60s/baby boomer hangover, the sense that computers/tech are the future, flirtations with Reaganism. And musically so much of the decade's trends are present, regardless of whether or not he was setting or following them: post-disco R&B, new wave, 60s throwback jangle pop, Bob Seger-style guitar anthems, rap. If you go through these records they give you a better picture of what 80s pop culture was about, from the dawn of the decade to the end, than almost any other artist I can think of.

Then working back I was figuring Zep for the 70s and (duh) the Beatles for the 60s, although going the other direction I have a harder time - feel like from the 90s on either the number of artist's who sustained a career height through the entire decade become rarer (and they were pretty rare to begin with), or the pop landscape fractured too much for anyone to really cover it all.

I mean you could even (to some extent) extrapolate 80s hair metal from Prince - the androgyny + guitar pyrotechnics and stupid come-ons

Cliched 'rebuttal' but I don't see any decades discretize so cleanly along musical lines, 70s excepted possibly.

Prince was definitely a master at recognizing all the dynamics and waves occurring in pop music throughout the 80s, though.

I started a thread on this very subject last year:

Bands that perfectly represent decades

60s: The Beatles
70s: Led Zeppelin
80s: The Smiths
90s: The Smashing Pumpkins
00s: Animal Collective

aahhh thx anagram I could've sworn there was something like this already but couldn't find it!

80s: The Smiths

http://emojipedia-us.s3.amazonaws.com/cache/17/47/17474d3a52fd7efdada7b5896b5c5906.png

NO. nvm. how could i forget -

80s: HÜSKER DÜ

60's : Josip Broz Tito
70's : Wojciech Jaruzelski
80's : Nicolae Ceaușescu
90's : Slobodan Milošević
00's : Ramzan Kadyrov

60's : The Beatles
70's : David Bowie
80's : Vangelis
90's : Aphex Twin
00's : Daft Punk
10's : Flying Lotus

60s: Miles Davis
70s: Anthony Braxton
80s: Minutemen
90s: John Zorn
00s: Boredoms
10s: Death Grips

60s: The Beach Boys
70s: Roxy Music
80s: New Order
90s: Saint Etienne
00s: Broadcast
10s: Miguel

http://i67.tinypic.com/2czukyd.gif

60s: beatles
70s: yes
80s: REM
90s: sea & cake
00s: espers
10s: kurt vile / war on drugs / steve gunn

60s: Beach Boys
70s: Lee Scratch Perry
80s: Talking Heads
90s: The Boo Radleys
00s: Animal Collective
10s: Future

although i was tempted to say scott walker for each decade.

60s: The Beatles
70s: Steely Dan
80s: The Cure
90s: The Boo Radleys
00s: Spoon
10s: Vampire Weekend

60s: The Hitlers
70s: Hitler and Co.
80s: Hitler vs Hitler
90s: Endless Hitler
00s: The Black Hitlers
10s: Gaz Coombes

00's : Ramzan Kadyrov

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Ramzan+Kadyrov+singing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJnt0BhYENI

60s miles
70s can
80s felt
90s ghost
00s idk, madlib maybe

70s is not can... Oh well it's just a list thread!

00s theo Parrish
10s gaz Coombes

60s Jorge Ben
70s Can
80s Tom Waits
90s Stereolab
00s The Books

60s miles
70s steely dan
80s boyd jarvis
90s ghost (jp)
00s shit decade, no clue
10s actress

Based on consistent quality of record releases, not that they defined the zeitgeist or whatever:

60s The Kinks
70s Roxy Music
80s Talk Talk
90s The Loud Family
00s The New Pornographers
10s Joanna Newsom

60s Rolling Stones
70s The Clash
80s Prince
90s Aimee Mann
00s The Mountain Goats
10s Janelle Monae

60s yardbirds 70s yes 80s police 90s aphex twin 2000s boards of canada 2010s lil nas x!

fiXed that for you, xzesfan:

60s: Jeff Bex’ Box of Frogs
70s: Peter Banx’s Yes
80s: Police’s Roxanne
90s: Aphex Twin
00s: ------ / ------ / ------ / XXXXXX / ------ / ------
10s: Lil Nas X

60s: Ken Nordine
70s: Stevie Wonder
80s: Prince
90s: Björk
00s: Erykah Badu
10s: KING

60s: Beatles
70s: Led Zeppelin
80s: R.E.M.
90s: Ween
00s: idk... Kanye maybe
10s: lol who gives a shit?

20s: Dua Lipa

60s: The Grateful Dead
70s: Jerry Garcia Band
80s: Hart & Kreutzmann’s Rhythm Devils
90s: Bob Weir’s RatDog
00s: Phil Lesh and Friends
10s: BLACKPINK

60s: your mom
70s: your mom
80s: your mom
90s: your mom
00s: your mom
10s: your mom

and she's still got it!