Worst Year for Music in the last 50 Years?

I’ve been trying to narrow this down…for me, the combination of an electronic drum kit combined with keyboard players using whatever new/different sounds they could find on their cutting edge synths in the mid-'80s led to some of the worst music ever.

Although such great albums as The Replacements’ Tim, Tom Waits’ Rain Dogs, The Cure’s The Head on the Door, and The Smiths’ Meat Is Murder, among others, all came out that year, it can’t outweigh the pop drivel, so I’m going to go with 1985.

The top 20 Billboard songs:

1 Careless Whisper Wham!
2 Like A Virgin Madonna
3 Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go Wham!
4 I Want To Know What Love Is Foreigner
5 I Feel For You Chaka Khan
6 Out Of Touch Daryl Hall and John Oates
7 Everybody Wants To Rule The World Tears For Fears
8 Money For Nothing Dire Straits
9 Crazy For You Madonna
10 Take On Me A-Ha
11 Everytime You Go Away Paul Young
12 Easy Lover Phil Collins and Philip Bailey
13 Can’t Fight This Feeling REO Speedwagon
14 We Built This City Starship
15 The Power Of Love Huey Lewis and The News
16 Don’t You (Forget About Me) Simple Minds
17 Cherish Kool and The Gang
18 St. Elmo’s Fire (Man In Motion) John Parr
19 The Heat Is On Glenn Frey
20 We Are The World U.S.A. For Africa

(Rest of the list here)

Minus 2 or 3 of those, that’s a pretty good mix tape!

I’m going to nominate 1990, the year before music started back up again.

1 “Hold On” Wilson Phillips
2 “It Must Have Been Love” Roxette
3 “Nothing Compares 2 U” Sinéad O’Connor
4 “Poison” Bell Biv DeVoe
5 “Vogue” Madonna
6 “Vision of Love” Mariah Carey
7 “Another Day in Paradise” Phil Collins
8 “Hold On” En Vogue
9 “Cradle of Love” Billy Idol
10 “Blaze of Glory” Jon Bon Jovi
11 “Do Me!” Bell Biv DeVoe
12 “How Am I Supposed to Live Without You” Michael Bolton
13 “Pump Up the Jam” Technotronic featuring Felly
14 “Opposites Attract” Paula Abdul and The Wild Pair
15 “Escapade” Janet Jackson
16 “All I Wanna Do Is Make Love to You” Heart
17 “Close to You” Maxi Priest
18 “Black Velvet” Alannah Myles
19 “Release Me” Wilson Phillips
20 “Don’t Know Much” Linda Ronstadt and Aaron Neville

Hmm, so far Phil Collins and Madonna are the strongest - or weakest - links between my list and the OP :slight_smile:

I’ll go with many years in the 1970s. Crappy soft rock like “Don’t Give Up on Us Now,” “How Much I Feel,” and “Afternoon Delight” dominated the Billboard charts. I’m glad I wasn’t old enough to suffer through that garbage.

'85? Besides the albums you mentioned, there were also excellent works by The Jesus & Mary Chain, Meat Puppets, Robyn Hitchcock & the Egyptians, Hoodoo Gurus, Dramarama, Camper Van Beethoven, R.E.M., Husker Du (2 great records that year), and tons of others. I think a much worse year would come from the early '70s - here’s a partial list of the top 100 Billboard songs from 1971:

Three Dog Night - Joy to the World
Donny Osmond - Go Away Little Girl
John Denver - Take Me Home, Country Roads
Tony Orlando & Dawn - Knock Three Times
James Taylor - You’ve Got A Friend
Joan Baez - The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down
Ocean - Put Your Hand in the Hand
The Carpenters - For All We Know
Gordon Lightfoot - If You Could Read My Mind
Helen Reddy - I Don’t Know How To Love Him
Lobo - Me and You and a Dog Named Boo
Bread - If
Andy Williams - (Where Do I Begin?) Love Story
Cat Stevens - Wild World
Jerry Reed - When You’re Hot, You’re Hot
Bobby Goldsboro - Watching Scotty Grow
Neil Diamond - I Am…I Said

Pretty much a shitstorm of awfulness.

Agreed, that is a pretty banal list of tunes, but '71 also gave us these albums:

Led Zep IV
Stones - Sticky Fingers
The Who - Who’s Next
Black Sabbath - Paranoid
Marvin Gaye - What’s Goin’ On
Sly & The Family Stone - There’s a Riot Goin’ On
John Prine’s 1st Album
Doors - LA Woman
Van Morrison - Tupelo Honey
Flamin’ Groovies - Teenage Head
Kinks - Muswell Hillbillies
Pink Floyd - Meddle
JJ Cale - Naturally
In general, (and maybe because I was a pre-teen in those years and have associations with a carefree existence) I can stomach soft/saccharine rock much easier than 80’s cheese.

ZipperJJ, I just took a look at albums from 1990…you might have something there.

  1. With one or two exceptions, dreck.

1 “I Will Always Love You” Whitney Houston
2 “Whoomp! (There It Is)” Tag Team
3 “Can’t Help Falling in Love” UB40
4 “That’s the Way Love Goes” Janet Jackson
5 “Freak Me” Silk
6 “Weak” SWV
7 “If I Ever Fall in Love” Shai
8 “Dreamlover” Mariah Carey
9 “Rump Shaker” Wreckx-n-Effect
10 “Informer” Snow
11 “Nuthin’ but a ‘G’ Thang” Dr. Dre
12 “In the Still of the Nite” Boyz II Men
13 “Don’t Walk Away” Jade
14 “Knockin’ da Boots” H-Town
15 “Lately” Jodeci
16 “Dazzey Duks” Duice
17 “Show Me Love” Robin S.
18 “A Whole New World” Peabo Bryson and Regina Belle
19 “If” Janet Jackson

If the category is worst top 20 then I’d agree that 1993 wins so far. Of the ones I’ve heard there aren’t even any I’d put on my MP3 player even if I got them for free. At least with the other lists so far there are a couple I would (but not pay for.)

Which isn’t to say that there aren’t any from this millennium that wouldn’t win. I just likely have heard of none of the songs on their top 20 (despite the fact that most of the music I own is from this millennium: it’s mostly rock and rock usually doesn’t even crack the top 100 let alone top 20.)

I don’t know enough about music from the past few decades to comment on that period, but I will say that, although there was a lot of good music in the 1970s, 1974 seemed to be a sort of trough… a lot of the great artists of the late 60s - early 70s were losing momentum and punk/New Wave was still pretty much in the future. There’s almost no one about whom I can say, “My favorite album of theirs came out in 1974.”

I agree that the top 20 from 1993 is worse than the top 20 from 1990 (because BBD makes everything better) but the albums from 1990 were less impressive than 1993.

1990 doesn’t have anything that stands out to me, except* Ritual de lo habitual* which didn’t do much except get Jane’s Addiction on the radio more, and Fear of a Black Planet which gave us “Fight the Power” yes but…

1993, album-wise…well just check out the Google search results (at least in a desktop browser). All of the sexiest albums are up in there. You got Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Tool. A Tribe Called Quest, Snoop and Wu Tang. Bjork, Liz Phair, the Cranberries. Counting Crows and Smashing Pumpkins.

Maybe 1993 wasn’t a good year for pop radio or something but damn just looking at those album covers makes me weak in the knees!!!

My word, they are all dreadful.

Here’s another partial list from the same year and list:

Carole King-It’s Too Late
Janis Joplin-Me and Bobby McGee
Corneilus Brothers-Treat Her Like a Lady
Paul McCartney and Wings-Uncle Albert
Bill Withers-Ain’t No Sunshine
George Harrison-My Sweet Lord
Issac Hayes-Theme from ‘Shaft’

Also (going just by singles and not albums):

  • Marvin Gaye - “What’s Going On”, “Mercy, Mercy Me (The Ecology)”, and “Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)”
  • Al Green - “Tired of Being Alone” and “Let’s Stay Together”
  • Derek and the Dominos - “Layla” (It also charted again in 1972.)

If we stick to pop chart stuff then I’ll vote for 1993, too. There was a terrible slump in pop music that year which, come to think of it, also extended to 1994. I couldn’t turn on the tv or the radio without being bored to tears within minutes.

Album-wise, though I’m not sure. There was at least Björk’s Debut which I remember listening to every night for a while.

To me, 1974 was a great year in music. King Crimson’s seminal “Red”, Deep Purple’s “Burn”, Gentle Giant’s “The Power and the Glory”, Genesis’ “The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway”, Yes’s “Relayer”, Sparks’ “Kimono My House”, Queen’s “Sheer Heart Attack”, 10cc’s “Sheet Music”, Steely Dan’s “Pretzel Logic” are just a sampler, although to be fair, there were greater individual years in the excellent 1970 - 1975 period.

Good point on the albums; which is kind of self serving as I own about half of that list…

But if we are talking radio play I stand by '93 being a really good year to have a cd player or mp3’s on your computer (yes kids we had mp3s back in the day… just no players per se.) :frowning:

De gustibus, and all that… three of the albums on that list (Red, Relayer and Pretzel Logic) would be on my list of “1974 albums that were good, but post-prime for the artist”… in my opinion, of course. I’ll give you Lamb Lies Down, though.

A lot of these lists bring back some bad memories. But to be honest, present day gets my vote. I can’t keep any local pop station on for more than 5 minutes before some auto-tuned, gimmick sound, gimmick rhythmed song comes on and shits all over my eardrums.

And get off my lawn!

Also the year we lost Stevie Ray Vaughn. :frowning:

So songs like Niggas in Paris by Jay-Z don’t do it for you?