# What 5 year period of music defined you most?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-5-year-period-of-music-defined-you-most/555910
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [October 3, 2010, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-5-year-period-of-music-defined-you-most/555910 "2010-10-03T13:32:56Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)
#### Post date: [October 3, 2010, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-5-year-period-of-music-defined-you-most/555910/1 "2010-10-03T13:32:56Z")
I was going to ask what 5 years had the most albums come out that are your favorite, but I think it will end up turning into my new question anyway.
What 5 year period had tons of quality albums that kind of define you as a music love now? What 5 years was it and what albums were released that you love?
I’ll start.
Mine was 1990-1995.
In those years, the following albums were relased, all amazing:
\*\*
Alice in Chains - Facelift \*\*(the first grunge album I heard)
\*\*Nirvana - Nevermind \*\*(classic grunge)
**Alice in Chains - Dirt** (their best album and one of my favorites)
**Pearl Jam - Ten** (again, amazing)
**Stone Temple Pilots - Core** (loved it)
\*\*Stone Temple Pilots - Purple \*\*(their best album)
\*\*Nirvana - In Utero \*\*(in many ways, better than Nevermind)
**Alice in Chains - Jar of Flies** (love it)
**Pearl Jam - Vitalogy** ( never loved Vs., but this is their best)
**Alice in Chains** - Self-titled/Tripod(the last great album released in my 5 year experience)
\*\*KMFDM - Nihil \*\*(one of the best “industrial” albums ever)
\*\*Nine Inch Nails - Downward Spiral \*\*(Trent Reznor’s only masterpiece)
Basically, you can see that for those 5 years, I was actually into the music that was selling well and was targeted at my age. I went from 7th Grade - 12th Grade in those years and even today, I realize that those albums were all great.
I’d even take these albums over the Beatles run from 1962-1967 or so. Seriously.
What 5 years defined you? What 5 years had the highest quality of music to you?
I never liked Soundgarden, by the way.
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### Author:  [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)
#### Post date: [October 3, 2010, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-5-year-period-of-music-defined-you-most/555910/2 "2010-10-03T13:36:26Z")
Easy! 1966 to 1971. _Revolver_, _Pet Sounds_, and _Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme_, to _Zep IV_, _Sticky Fingers_, and _Aqualung_.
I was born in 1970, BTW.\*
(\*Which means I was in 7th-to-12th-grades in the…ouch…1980s! Wouldn’t have been _so_ bad if I had been hip to R.E.M. at the time.)
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### Author:  [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)
#### Post date: [October 3, 2010, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-5-year-period-of-music-defined-you-most/555910/3 "2010-10-03T13:37:06Z")
I can’t make up my mind between 1968-1973, and 2001-2006. The first had Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin, the second had pop punk/emo (although of course there are classic rock and emo stuff outside of those years)
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### Author:  [@Ronald\_C.Semone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ronald_C.Semone)
#### Post date: [October 3, 2010, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-5-year-period-of-music-defined-you-most/555910/4 "2010-10-03T14:22:37Z")
1940 - 1945
And we didn’t have albums in those days. We had to buy the songs one at a time on 98s.
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### Author:  [@Motorgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Motorgirl)
#### Post date: [October 3, 2010, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-5-year-period-of-music-defined-you-most/555910/5 "2010-10-03T14:39:46Z")
1984-1989
Lifes’s Rich Pagent - REM
Document - REM
Ghost of Cain - New Model Army
Tim - Replacements
Pleased to Meet Me - Replacements
Skylarking - XTC
Surfer Rosa - Pixies
The Joshua Tree - U2
This is what you want… this is what you get - P.I.L.
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### Author:  [@Le\_Ministre\_de\_l\_au-dela](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Le_Ministre_de_l_au-dela)
#### Post date: [October 3, 2010, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-5-year-period-of-music-defined-you-most/555910/6 "2010-10-03T14:42:34Z")
> [@Ronald\_C.Semone](#):
>
> 1940 - 1945
>
> And we didn’t have albums in those days. We had to buy the songs one at a time on 98s.
What’s a 98, Grandpa?
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### Author:  [@Ronald\_C.Semone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ronald_C.Semone)
#### Post date: [October 3, 2010, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-5-year-period-of-music-defined-you-most/555910/7 "2010-10-03T15:01:29Z")
> [@Le\_Ministre\_de\_l\_au-dela](#):
>
> > [@Ronald\_C.Semone](#):
> >
> > 1940 - 1945
> >
> > And we didn’t have albums in those days. We had to buy the songs one at a time on 98s.
>
> What’s a 98, Grandpa?
These old fingers don’t type the way they used to, when we had real typewriters. Of course I meant 78s. :smack:
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### Author:  [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)
#### Post date: [October 3, 2010, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-5-year-period-of-music-defined-you-most/555910/8 "2010-10-03T15:09:40Z")
Seconding 1966-1971. They made music in them days, not noise. Music could change us, and we could change the world. The radio was filled with love, sex and revolution.
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### Author:  [@Le\_Ministre\_de\_l\_au-dela](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Le_Ministre_de_l_au-dela)
#### Post date: [October 3, 2010, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-5-year-period-of-music-defined-you-most/555910/9 "2010-10-03T15:24:19Z")
For me, I’d have to say the period from '71 to '76. It was a fantastic time of cross-fertilization between different styles of music, and a time when Rock musicians and Jazz musicians were all doing things that sent me off in all directions at once, listening to earlier jazz and classical recordings.
Some examples from various musicians between '71 and '76 -
Frank Zappa - 200 Motels, Waka/Jawaka, The Grand Wazoo, Over-Nite Sensation, Apostrophe (’), One Size Fits All, Zoot Allures.
Strawbs - Hero and Heroine, Ghosts
Gentle Giant - Accquiring the Taste, Three Friends, Octopus, In a Glass House, The Power and the Glory, Free Hand, Interview
Genesis - Nursery Cryme, Foxtrot, Selling England By the Pound, The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, A Trick of the Tail
Yes - The Yes Album, Fragile, Close to the Edge, Tales from Topographic Oceans, Relayer
Mike Oldfield - Tubular Bells, Hergest Ridge, Ommadawn
Return to Forever - Return to Forever, Light as a Feather, Hymn of the Seventh Galaxy, Where Have I Known You Before, No Mystery, Romantic Warrior
Herbie Hancock - Sextant, Head Hunters
Miles Davis - Live/Evil, Big Fun, Get up with it, Water Babies
Weather Report - Weather Report, I Sing the Body Electric, Sweetnighter, Mysterious Traveller, Tale Spinnin’, Black Market
King Crimson - Lark’s Tongues in Aspic, Starless and Bible Black, Red, USA
Pink Floyd - Meddle, Obscured by Clouds, Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here
All of whom had me going back and forth chasing down John Coltrane, Eric Dolphy, Charles Mingus, Thelonious Monk. Not to mention Debussy, Bartok, Mussorgski, Schoenberg, Varese, Mahler, Ligeti, Penderecki, Berg, Guillaume Dufay, Josquin…
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### Author:  [@Le\_Ministre\_de\_l\_au-dela](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Le_Ministre_de_l_au-dela)
#### Post date: [October 3, 2010, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-5-year-period-of-music-defined-you-most/555910/10 "2010-10-03T15:30:07Z")
> [@Ronald\_C.Semone](#):
>
> > [@Le\_Ministre\_de\_l\_au-dela](#):
> >
> > What’s a 98, Grandpa?
>
> These old fingers don’t type the way they used to, when we had real typewriters. Of course I meant 78s. :smack:
I knew what you meant; I just couldn’t resist calling you on it. 😃
We had a huge collection of 78s growing up - that’s how I heard my first Beethoven and Tchaikovsky.
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### Author:  [@Markxxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Markxxx)
#### Post date: [October 3, 2010, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-5-year-period-of-music-defined-you-most/555910/11 "2010-10-03T15:40:58Z")
> [@silenus](#):
>
> Seconding 1966-1971. They made music in them days, not noise. Music could change us, and we could change the world. The radio was filled with love, sex and revolution.
I think this time period was a great time in music, because you had such a mix of music in the popular arena. I mean look at Number One songs from the end of 1968 and beginning of 1969
Crimson & Clover -\> Everyday People -\> Dizzy -\> Aquarius/Let The Sun Shine In -\> Get Back
You have rock -\> R&B -\> Bubblegum -\> Songs from Broadway -\> rock
It’s such a mix and that continued like that for a while. Music could be counted on as chaning styles every few years.
For me personally I loved the years 1981-1986, probably as they were my late teens early 20s. That seems to influence a lot of people
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### Author:  [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffy_the_Elephant_Shrew)
#### Post date: [October 3, 2010, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-5-year-period-of-music-defined-you-most/555910/12 "2010-10-03T15:50:10Z")
Like everyone else, I’ll choose a six-year period. 😉
1969-74, the rise and peak of progressive rock.
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### Author:  [@Pai325](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pai325)
#### Post date: [October 3, 2010, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-5-year-period-of-music-defined-you-most/555910/13 "2010-10-03T15:53:19Z")
1964 - 1968. After 1968 it wasn’t as much fun.
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### Author:  [@E.Thorp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E.Thorp)
#### Post date: [October 3, 2010, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-5-year-period-of-music-defined-you-most/555910/14 "2010-10-03T16:42:38Z")
In jazz, I’d say about 1958-63. I don’t know that the period can define me personally – I was born in 1967 – but it defines my musical taste pretty well.
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### Author:  [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)
#### Post date: [October 3, 2010, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-5-year-period-of-music-defined-you-most/555910/15 "2010-10-03T17:22:16Z")
My taste in music has continued to grow and evolve, so I can’t pin it down to five years, probably not even for any of the three or four (or five or six) genres of music I listen to.
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### Author:  [@FordTaurusSHO94](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FordTaurusSHO94)
#### Post date: [October 3, 2010, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-5-year-period-of-music-defined-you-most/555910/16 "2010-10-03T17:46:28Z")
I’d probably say 91-96. I got all of the stuff mentioned in the OP, plus the country and europop that was big back then. The early to mid-90s were a great time for all kinds of genres. It’s what I mostly still listen to. Lithium and Prime Country are 2 of my favorite stations on Sirius.
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### Author:  [@Happy\_Lendervedder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Lendervedder)
#### Post date: [October 3, 2010, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-5-year-period-of-music-defined-you-most/555910/17 "2010-10-03T18:04:49Z")
1994-98. Grunge, Europop and Ameripop were all really good, as was country, rap and hip-hop.
Dre, **2Pac** , Snoop, Puffy, Biggie, Backstreet, NSync, Nirvana, **Pearl Jam** , Wallflowers, TLC, NiN, STP, Garth Brooks, Alan Jackson, Dixie Chicks, **Dwight Yoakam** , Aqua, Beck, Ace of Base, Letters from Cleo, the Breeders, REM, DJ Kool, DJ Assault, Garbage, Liz Phair, Smashing Pumpkins, **Green Day** , **Rage Against the Machine** , **Weezer** , Oasis, **Sublime** , Fugees, **Bush** , No Doubt, **Barenaked Ladies** , Matchbox 20…not all of it was “great music,” but I owned and loved albums from all of those artists, and it all defined me in some manner or other. I’d go through pop phases, country phases, grunge/hard rock phases, rap phases, and this music took me from my late teens into my mid-20s…I bolded the stuff I still love today.
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### Author:  [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)
#### Post date: [October 3, 2010, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-5-year-period-of-music-defined-you-most/555910/18 "2010-10-03T18:18:02Z")
For me 1978-1982/3 (depending on how we’re defining five years.)
Basically, the punk/post-punk explosion and the birth of hip hop.
Wire, Gang of Four, Soft Boys, XTC, Pretenders, The Clash, X-Ray Spex, Grandmaster Flash, Sugarhill Gang, etc.
I was very young at that time period, so I didn’t really get around to exploring music from that era until much later–probably my early 20s. But this five-year time period is the most represented in my musical collection.
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### Author:  [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)
#### Post date: [October 3, 2010, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-5-year-period-of-music-defined-you-most/555910/19 "2010-10-03T19:03:31Z")
> [@Le\_Ministre\_de\_l\_au-dela](#):
>
> We had a huge collection of 78s growing up - that’s how I heard my first Beethoven and Tchaikovsky.
78s? _Flat_ records? We had cylinders and liked it!
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### Author:  [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)
#### Post date: [October 3, 2010, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-5-year-period-of-music-defined-you-most/555910/20 "2010-10-03T19:25:41Z")
Me? 1969-1974.
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