One night while enjoying a kip you are overcome in a brilliant white light. You’ve been abducted by aliens - fortunately for you, they don’t wanna shove anything up your arse, but they are curious about the concept of music and stick an implant in your head. Through wild gestures and interpretive dance, they make it clear that from now on you can only listen to music published in one of your Earth years. Anything else comes in as incomprehensible static, it registers as a sound but is no longer heard as music.
They’ll give you seven of your Earth days to make up your mind, whereupon you will be picked up again and the implant activated and attuned to your chosen year. For clarity, a song must be released and available to the public in the year you picked to be included - it doesn’t matter when it was written or recorded.
So, what’s your chosen year? Looong poll incoming.
you get Elvis Costello’s Armed Forces, probably my favorite album of all time, as well as some of the best work recorded by Nick Lowe, XTC, Joe Jackson, The Clash, Fleetwood Mac, Wire, Sparks, Gang of Four, Talking Heads, Michael Jackson, Devo, The B-52s, Neil Young and The Cars.
You even get some Greatest Hits treatment from The Bee Gees and ABBA, so you’ll never be bored (if Greatest Hits compilations are allowed).
The only sad part would be having to live with Prince’s self-titled album (the weakest of his earlier albums, imo) and knowing you could be listening to so much more from him.
That was the year that Rock really advanced and exploded, but had still retained it’s freshness and pop appeal without indulging in some of the excessive noodling of the following years. Off the top of my head, some groundbreaking albums from the year:
The Beatles - Revolver
Bob Dylan - Blonde on Blonde
The Kinks - Face To Face
The Byrds - Fifth Dimension
The Velvet Underground - The Velvet Underground And Nico
Otis Redding - The Otis Redding Dictionary of Soul
Buffalo Springfield - Buffalo Springfield
Add to that the many classic singles of that year.
My second choice would be 1977, the year that Punk famously broke.
Note that I was born in 1968 and have been listening to music from about 1920 to today, so I don’t think that I’m overtly influenced here by the music of the time of my youth.
2011 (although I hit 2010 by mistake) - the year my favourite album by my favourite band came out (plus a number of singles from the band and one by the singer in one of her solo projects)…I’d miss a lot of stuff before that, and a little bit after it, but…
1987, just in terms of some of my favourite albums:
The Cure: Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me
The Swans: Children of God
Sisters of Mercy: Floodland
Einsturzende Neubauten: Fünf auf der nach oben offenen Richterskala
Shelleyan Orphan: Helleborine
Dead Can Dance: Within the Realm of a Dying Sun
The Smiths: Strangeways, Here We Come
The Young Gods: The Young Gods
Fields of the Nephilim: Dawnrazor
Half Man Half Biscuit: Back Again in the DHSS
Jesus and Mary Chain: Darklands
Depeche Mode: Music For The Masses
Lloyd Cole & The Commotions: Mainstream
The Christians: The Christians
Swing Out Sister: It’s Better To Travel
Deacon Blue: Raintown
The Housemartins: The People Who Grinned Themselves to Death
The Stone Roses: Sally Cinnamon E.P.
R.E.M.: Document
Pixies: Come On Pilgrim
Big Black: Songs About Fucking
10000 Maniacs: In My Tribe
Spear of Destiny: Outland
The Men They Couldn’t Hang: Waiting For Bonaparte
Midnight Oil: Diesel and Dust
I’d be cheesed at missing out on Cocteau Twins, Bad Seeds, Kate Bush, Thomas Dolby, The Fall and This Mortal Coil. Can’t have everything.
I picked 1995 for No Doubt’s Tragic Kingdom and Alanis Morissette’s jagged Little Pill, but a quick google search reveals that I would also get Garbage, Oasis’s What’s the Story (Morning Glory)?, Tupac’s Me Against the World, 311, Jewel’s Pieces of You, and Smashing Pumpkins’ Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness.
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and Magical Mystery Tour - The Beatles
The Doors and Strange Days - The Doors
Surrealistic Pillow and After Bathing at Baxter’s - Jefferson Airplane
Disraeli Gears - Cream
Their Satanic Majesties Request - The Rolling Stones
The Who Sell Out - The Who
Procol Harum
A Hard Road - John Mayall
Are You Experienced? and Axis: Bold As Love - Jimi Hendrix
Mellow Yellow - Donovan
Patsy Cline’s Greatest Hits
Absolutely Free - The Mothers of Invention
You’re a Big Boy Now - The Lovin’ Spoonful
The 5000 Spirits or the Layers of the Onion - The Incredible String Band
The Piper at the Gates of Dawn - Pink Floyd
Goodbye and Hello - Tim Buckley
Joan - Joan Baez
Safe as Milk - Captain Beefheart
Ten Years After Ten Years After
Pleasures of the Harbor - Phil Ochs
Alice’s Restaurant - Arlo Guthrie
Wildflowers - Judy Collins
Days of Future Passed - The Moody Blues
I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-to-Die - Country Joe and the Fish -
John Wesley Harding - Bob Dylan
The Velvet Underground & Nico - The Velvet Underground
Songs of Leonard Cohen
Lumpy Gravy - Frank Zappa
Mr. Fantasy - Traffic
A Gift from a Flower to a Garden - Donovan
I’d have to do a more thorough study of exactly which songs I was on the hook for, but I voted 1974. It would definitely be one of the early post-Beatles years where shit really started to get interesting.
very hard question to answer. a 5 year window might be able to give a real answer.
even in the area of 60s music; the late 60s had good music with some groups just getting started, the early 70s had good music with some groups winding down.
Since it does not matter when it was written or recorded I’d have to choose whatever the current year is. That way I’d have access to everything so far!
The Grateful Dead Grateful Dead
The Electric Prunes The Electric Prunes
Alice’s Restaurant Arlo Guthrie
The Resurrection of Pigboy Crabshaw Paul Butterfield Blues Band
1967 would be in my top 3 years. though without going through maybe 7 years of music i really couldn’t give an actual answer.
I have a feeling almost everyone will pick a year when they were in high school.
1994:
Morrissey - Vauxhall & I
Nine Inch Nails - The Downward Spiral
Portishead - Dummy
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Let Love In
Blur - Parklife
Beastie Boys - Ill Communication
Weezer - Weezer
Sloan - Twice Removed
Beck - Mellowgold
Liz Phair - Whipsmart
Hole - Live Through This
Therapy? - Troublegum
Not to mention releases by Tori Amos, Sonic Youth, Erasure, Pavement, Elliott Smith, Oasis, Manic Street Preachers, Nirvana, and Suede. I’m pissed about missing Radiohead’s The Bends by three months, but what can you do?