On the Top 40 side of things, “Hey Ya” by Outcast to me is quintessential 2000s. I’d put “Sexy Back” and “Gold digger” up there, too. Maybe “Crazy in Love,” as well. Also Gnarls Barkley’s “Crazy.” It’s really hard to say. “Float On” is a good contender for the indie rock side of things.
For the “Aughts” I nominate “The Rising” by the Boss.
Excellent choices. Don’t think I can top them, though a possible alternative for the 1930s would be “Anything Goes” and for the 1910s “Over There.”
I’m not so sure about “Somebody To Love”- I think “White Rabbit” is more often used to suggest/evoke “the 60’s”; in movies it’s a cliche. For middle to late 60’s, anyway.
Agreed.
The 60s are really hard to pin down because music was all over the place in that decade. The early years introduced us to the folk/folk-rock scene( Peter Paul & Mary, Bob Dylan, The Byrds). The folk-rock scene morphed into “protest” music (Barry McGuire), which gave birth to socially conscious rock (We Won’t Get Fooled Again) that turned up the amplifiers and started the “arena rock” trend. Then shit went crazy with “psychedelic” and “heavy metal” styles. (Jefferson Airplane, Led Zepplin, Black Sabbath). Rockers also discovered The Blues and rocked it (The Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton, Canned Heat). And from about 1964 on The Beatles were weaving in and out of every genre you can name. Standard pop music kept up a steady pace (Petula Clark, The Monkees, Paul Revere and the Raiders) and a whole shitload of hard to classify people/groups were getting airplay too (Frank Zappa, Commander Cody). Country music was still hot if you were paying attention (Tammy Wynette, Loretta Lynn, Merle Haggard) and it too crossed over to the rest of the country and became “Southern Rock” (The Allman Brothers, Lynyrd Skynyrd). All the while Soul Music was still going strong (Wilson Pickett, James Brown, Sam & Dave), and , in New York City anyway, there was the Boogaloo style of Latin music often referred to as “NuYorican” as exemplified by Joe Cuba and Ray Barretto.
So how do you select a song representative of the 60s? Impossible I say! Just do a YouTube search on some of the names/groups I’ve mentioned and you’re sure to be lost for hours in musical bliss.
I would think the song for the ‘70’s would have to be "Stayin’ Alive." To me there’s no stronger example of an association between a decade and a musical genre as there is between the 1970’s and disco, and “Stayin’ Alive” is the quintessential disco song.
For the 60s, I’d nominate “They Times They Are A’ Changing”, or “Blowin’ in the Wind”.