Worst era for music?

[Adora]

what era do you think had the worst when it came to music? Do you think we have gotten better now or do you believe that modern music isn't good.

 

[Myrtonos]

A lot of post-disco era music isn't that good, nevertheless, I have a few fond memories of nineties music, mostly alternative.

 

[Progster]

For me, the worse era is the 90s, because rap, house, boy bands and other genres of music that I don't like started to become really popular. At that point I stopped listening to the radio. I don't like the kind of music that's popular and gets played in clubs or on the radio at the moment. I like prog rock from any era, classic rock, folk rock and metal.

 

[Myrtonos]

Boy bands weren't a 90s fad, they had been around before, they just were called bands. What about the pre-disco girl groups?

 

[Adora]

For me, the worse era is the 90s, because rap, house, boy bands and other genres of music that I don't like started to become really popular. At that point I stopped listening to the radio. I don't like the kind of music that's popular and gets played in clubs or on the radio at the moment. I like prog rock from any era, classic rock, folk rock and metal.

I agree about the 90s, there some good songs during the 90s but around the mid 90s things went downhill,I am not a fan of rap and wasn't really into the boy bands of the time I prefer music mostly from the 70s and 80s

 

[Progster]

Boy bands weren't a 90s fad, they had been around before, they just were called bands. What about the pre-disco girl groups?

This is true - the Beatles could be described as a boy band. With the exception of some of their first hits which I don't like, the Beatles' music was way better than 90s boy band music.

 

[Myrtonos]

So could most other popular band contemporary with them, too many to list. As well as many 70s acts, think of Pink Floyd.

 

[Progster]

So could most other popular band contemporary with them, too many to list. As well as many 70s acts, think of Pink Floyd.

It doesn't matter whether they are a (boy) band or not, it matters to me whether I like their music or not. I like Pink Floyd's music, but I don't like the music of any 90s boy band.

 

[The Penguin]

I can't stand most pop music these days. It seems all the same to me. I have trouble to explain in words but I prefer music from the 90's and prior.

 

[Judge]

I listen almost exclusively to popular music of the 60s, 70s and 80s as well as classical.

For me popular music fell off a cliff at the beginning of the 90s and never recovered.

 

[Mia]

I think that you have to be open to changes in eras and styles in music. My Mother for example liked big band music because she liked to dance, and Frank Sinatra for ballads, my Father liked opera and classical music. My spouse listens only to Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin and Clapton and Stevie Ray. His love of guitar and rock has made him obsessed with music that typifies an important time in his life.

Music progresses from each era to the next, each new change is often a complete reversal to the previous one, almost in protest. Rock and roll to rap for example. Big band to barbershop quartets and a capella. Gospel and blues to instrument based heavy rock. Think it all has to do with tolerance, certain eras set up emotional connections at different ages and create important memories for some. Have been open to each change, like most types of music and tend towards singer songwriter creations, rather than straight 'made for commercial' use hits.

 

[The Penguin]

I will also add I have changed recently and mainly listen to music from video games. It might not be the norm but I'm a person that normally don't follow the norm. It nice to know some people into video game music when I create thread https://www.aspiescentral.com/threads/who-into-listening-to-video-game-music.8424/

 

[Brony714]

The last 5-10 years. Maybe it's because I'm getting older, but what the kids today consider "music", I consider to be noise pollution. It almost depresses me that when kids today are my age, they'll get nostalgic for the likes of Justin Bieber, Lady GaGa, Miley Cyrus, and One Direction. And when I was younger, I was into heavy metal, but not what they call "metal" today. Back when I was a teenager, heavy metal was called "the Devil's music", but a lot of metal bands today, they sound like the lead singer is Satan himself. Either that, or the singer screams the words so they're unintelligible. Of course, there's Scandinavian metal, from Norway, Sweden, and Finland. It's appropriate that Vikings came from that part of the world, because after listening to Swedish, Norwegian, or Finnish metal for more than a few minutes, I feel like I've been on the receiving end of a Viking raid.

 

[WildCat]

Once the 2000s approached, in my opinion, everything took a turn for the worse. Just another matter of perspective, since today's "garbage" appeals to the younger generation and someone somewhere will eventually disagree with you on said "garbage" no matter your reasoning. I say to each their own, no need for quibbling...

As far as what I prefer, I'm mostly into 80s/90s hits, with a bit of 70s here and there. I have an appetite for many genres, especially synth-heavy tracks, rock, classic hip-hop, all that sort of stuff.

 

[Brony714]

The thing I really dislike about current music the most is the disposable nature of it... back in the day, a band would get a few albums to build an audience, to have that one big hit, unlike today. Nowadays, it's practically like a band or artist has to have their debut single enter the charts in the top 5 or else they get dropped, and while back in the day, you'd see artists sticking around for years, nowadays, it seems like the lifespan of an artist's career is about that of a goldfish... And I predict that sometime in the next 5-10 years, the latest "next big thing" in pop music will be someone who wasn't born the last time they actually played a music video on MTV...

 

[wyverary]

All eras had their brilliance and their crap...and that goes back to the dawn of Western music itself. I think now is a better time than ever for talented bands to thrive even if they aren't at the absolute forefront of the music scene. Maybe it's bias, living near Nashville and going to so many shows at venues that hold 300-1500 people...but I think the Internet and podcasts and such have been nothing but a boon for music. Is it any better or worse than it used to be? Who knows? But it sure as hell is a lot more accessible.

 

[Brony714]

Granted, there has been some good music in the last 10-15 years, but it's been out of the mainstream, AFAIC... I just don't like mainstream pop nowadays... It may have something to do with the fact I'm not a kid anymore, my musical tastes have matured... but it also seems that what's popular today is a product of the "one size fits all" school of thought, while when I was a kid, top 40 had a variety... you listen for a couple hours, you'd hear some R&B, a ballad or 3, some light rock, maybe some hard rock or even heavy metal, something jazzy, something funky, definitely a few songs you can dance to, something with synthesizers, and quite possibly even a country song here and there, to name a few... A little something for everybody... But nowadays, it seems like every Top 40 station in America is programmed by one guy in an office 80 stories above New York City...

 

[Flinty]

The 1990s were bad, but not nearly as much as the 2000s. Strangely enough, things have improved in the 2010s.

Whether the 70s or 80s were better...there were more great songs in the 70s, but there were also more awful songs then as well.

 

[Wab]

Agree with all of you, 90s and 2000s were horrible eras for music. I also prefer 70s/80s, with greats like The Band, Pat Benatar, Laura Branigan, Leonard Cohen, Miles Davis, Bob Dylan, Gondwanaland, Billy Joel, Rainbow, Redgum, The Rolling Stones, Santana, Bruce Springsteen, Tom Waits, The Who and Frank Zappa. Have many of their albums on CD and vinyl (mostly in the latter format).

 

[Adonisus]

Every era has had their crap.....but for my money? It would be 1989 to 1991.

People often wonder: Why was it that some random band out of Seattle (Nirvana) would suddenly become so incredibly popular with their sophomore album and completely change the face of popular music in one fell swoop?

Answer: Because the stuff that was topping the charts at that point was AWFUL. You know all of that sappy, saccharine and soulless Adult Contemporary garbage you hear at the grocery store? THAT was what was charting then. Oh sure, you'd have some occasional gems (old Celine Dion could be listenable), but that was it.

Oh, and don't get me started on the modern rock scene at the time. Sure, you had stuff like R.E.M. and Metallica, but other than that it was the slow, salty death of the Hair Band scene. The whole hair metal genre had become so formulaic and over-saturated that it really had no choice but to die. First everyone was all glammed out, then started toning it down and looking more fasionable, then everyone started going acoustic, and finally it just died.