First thing that came to mind for the 1970s was “Chevy Van” by Sammy Johns.
The 70s were more than just disco, and the “singer-songwriter with an acoustic guitar” was a big part of that era: think Don McLean, Carole King, John Denver, and the like.
But Johns took it a step further in “Chevy Van.” He sang about the custom van craze of the mid-1970s, telling the story of a guy with a custom Chevy van (we used to call them “shaggin’ wagons”), who picks up a girl, and … well, while he doesn’t exactly say so, you can guess what he implies happens in the back of the van.
I wonder if young people today would even understand what a “shaggin’ wagon” is.
Thinking about the 1980s, I’ll offer “99 Red Balloons,” by Nena. Like many 1980s songs, it is heavy on the synthesizer; but I think what sets it apart, and makes it “undeniably 80s” is the subject matter.
Those of us in the west who remember the 1980s, generally remember the USSR as the biggest enemy that the west had. We were sure that the USSR was just waiting for any excuse to nuke the west into submission to Moscow’s rule; and we became convinced of that when the USSR started deploying SS-20 nuclear missiles across eastern Europe. Of course, NATO wanted to respond with nuclear missiles placed in western Europe, but ran into a lot of opposition from various groups–the Greenham Common women were perhaps the best-known–but there were also massive peace protests and marches in places like New York and Toronto. Tensions were high, Berlin was divided, and the Doomsday Clock stood at about three minutes to midnight.
Now, along comes Nena, who shows a different side of things. Her peppy pop song all about how a release of toy balloons causes radar operators to warn superiors, who cause the President to be “on the line” while hawks gleefully exclaim, “This is what we’ve waited for/this is it boys, this is war!” They scramble jet fighters. By the end of the song, Nena is “standin’ pretty/In this dust that was a city.” And all because of ninety-nine toy balloons colored red.
These days, when religious fanatics armed with boxcutters have taken aircraft down, when we fear shoes at airport security checkpoints, and when the Soviet Union (heck, all of the Warsaw Pact, for that matter) fell unceremoniously by 1991; the idea of one superpower taking on another is ludicrous. Thus, IMHO, the subject matter of Nena’s song places it squarely in the 1980s.
That is a bit out of left field for me, I admit. “Smells Like Teen Spirit” would be the one that defines the 90s for me. Now, I like the song, but it’s not my favorite Nirvana song, much less my favorite song of the 90s, but its cultural impact on the rock music scene was undeniable.
Now, the Spin Doctors did represent some sort of neo-hippie thing that was going on in the 90s with them, Blues Traveler, Phish, etc., but they didn’t have quite the influence on 90s rock culture (in my experience) that Nirvana and the rest of the Seattle and associated acts scene did.