A Poll: Which era had better music, the 60's or the 80's

[An_Arky]

Everyone’s mentioned all the Big Famous Stars of the '60s already, but I just want to put in a plug for the Nuggets box set of garage band classics. Some damn fine rock and roll in there.

Thanks, Ukelele Ike, for the mention of a most excellent collection, indeed. For anyone who thinks punk was invented by the Sex Pistols, metal by Hendrix, goth by the Cure, and indie rock started in the eighties, this collection should be a revelation.

[hazel-rah]

I wouldn’t call garage rock any kind of proto-indie rock… indie-rock did start in the 80’s (some might say 90’s). I’m taking this as an insult to garage rock, mind you.

Sure, goth started with Bowie, but really with Bauhaus… some of these 80’s genres you name don’t really mean anything outside of a social context, so they really didn’t exist previous to a certain point in time. How the music actually sounded was only one part of it.

-fh

[Banger]

*Originally posted by NDP *
**
Your roster of acts from the 80’s inadvertently raised an important difference between good music from the 60’s and good music from the 80’s: good music from the 60’s was a lot easier to find. Songs by the Beatles, Stones, Dylan, The Doors, Hendrix, Motown, Stax, et al., filled the pop charts and were all over the radio. In contrast, most of the 80’s acts you mentioned were below the surface of popular music. During the 1980’s, you rarely heard these groups unless you had a college radio station in your town, spent most of your free time scouring independent record stores, watched MTV late Sunday night, or had some enlightened friends who would share their music with you. Otherwise, you were mostly stuck with Madonna, Wham, the hair metal bands, and other audio dreck. **

Perhaps I misconstrued the OP, as I thought the question was which decade did I think had better music, not which decade I think had better popular music. Given the OP’s reference to the Time-Life series, I suppose that the latter interpretation could be the intended one.

I don’t listen to the radio to find new music, or to enjoy the music I like, because what I like is rarely played on mainstream radio. Instead, I make full use of the internet, visiting record label sites and official/unofficial band pages, getting the news on my favorite bands, finding out about new bands, and sampling mp3s that the labels and bands provide on their sites. I have also become a new fan to bands opening up for bigger acts. For instance, I got into Avail after seeing them open for Rancid in '94, and Snuff became one of my favorite bands after seeing them open for NOFX in '96.

My vote for the 80s is based purely on my musical tastes, which were definitely influenced by my age, as I was born in 1974 and was about 10 when I really started getting into music, “discovering” bands like PIL, Fishbone and the Smiths. Strangely enough, I was one of the lucky kids to have cable early enough to witness the first days of MTV, and the Clash’s “Rock the Casbah” and Madness’s “One Step Beyond” (not to mention the Cars’ and Pretenders’ videos) were among my favorite videos as a child.