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Poll Best Decade For Music (as a whole, not just Hip Hop)

Best Decade For Music

  • 1969-1978

    Votes: 5 11.9%
  • 1979-1988

    Votes: 10 23.8%
  • 1989-1998

    Votes: 24 57.1%
  • 1999-2008

    Votes: 1 2.4%
  • 2009-2018

    Votes: 1 2.4%
  • Other (seriously?)

    Votes: 1 2.4%

  • Total voters
    42
80s music, even the good stuff, has aged horribly. I hate reverb and arena rock, and pretty much all 80s music infuses both
 
Really???

Zapp - More Bounce
Zapp - Computer Love
Zapp - I wanna Be Your Man
George Clinton - Atomic Dog
Marvin Gaye - Sexual Healing
Lionel Richie - Hello
Isley Brothers - Between The Sheets
Prince - When Doves Cry
Prince - Little Red Corvette
Prince - 1999
Prince - Purple Rain

That's just a few off the top. I ain't even scratching the surface of the timeless shit that came out of the 80's. I haven't touched on shit by white artists, hip hop, or anything else.

Cosign

Here's 10 R&B joints from the 80s:

Heartbeat - Taana Gardner
Genius Of Love - Tom Tom Club
Bon Bon Vie - T.S. Monk
Outstanding - The Gap Band
Encore - Cheryl Lynn
Love Come Down - Evelyn "Champaign" King
Hangin On A String - Loose Ends
Love Light In Flight - Stevie Wonder
All Night Long - Mary Jane Girls
Are You Single - Aurra

And here's 10 Hip Hop joints from the 80s

The Message - Grandmaster Flash & The Furious 5
Sucker MCs - Run DMC
8 Million Stories - Kurtis Blow feat Run DMC
Together Forever - Run DMC
Eric B Is President (12" Version) - Eric B & Rakim
9MM Goes Bang - Boogie Down Productions
Go Stetsa - Stetsasonic
Night Of The Living Baseheads - Public Enemy
Boys In The Hood (Remix) - Eazy E
Soul On Ice - Ice T

And here's 10 Reggae joints from the 80s

Zungguzungguguzungguzeng - Yellowman
Bam Bam - Sister Nancy
Test The High Power - Ninjaman
Mr Loverman - Shabba Ranks feat Deborah
Life Is What You Make It - Frighty & Colonel Mite
Kuff - Shelly Thunder
Sorry (Baby Can I Hold You) - Foxy Brown
Under Mi Sleng Teng - Wayne Smith
Nuff Respect - Lady G
Telephone Love - JC Lodge



I'll let somebody else list the Rock/Top 40 & Heavy Metal joints from the 80s
 
I'm inclined to think that the people who voted for the 90s grew up in the 90s.

I lived through the 80s, 90s, 00s and 10s (I was born in 73 but I can't claim to remember what music was like in that decade). Having lived through the 80s, Hip Hop was devastating to the ear. There was nothing like Hip Hop in the 80s.
 
1989-1998... Shoutout to 1999-2008 though...

Edit: I thought this was about hip hop...

With regards to music, it all depends on genre... Its hard to say 'music' was better in any decade...
 
I’m a music nerd by nature & IMO the 80’s was the genesis of a lot of musics landscape today for better or worse. I bump a lot of 80’s shit especially R&B/rap. While the 90’s got a special place in my heart since I grew up during that decade I’m going with 79-88.
 
I'm inclined to think that the people who voted for the 90s grew up in the 90s.

I lived through the 80s, 90s, 00s and 10s (I was born in 73 but I can't claim to remember what music was like in that decade). Having lived through the 80s, Hip Hop was devastating to the ear. There was nothing like Hip Hop in the 80s.

Fam, I'm only a year older than you but I can very clearly remember the music in the 70's.

I didn't vote for the 70's 'cause I'm looking at music as a musician more than anything else. That's not to say that the 70's didn't have classics and all that; it did. The 70's gave us Parliament/Funkadelic, Bride of Funkenstein, Deep Purple's best work, Sergio Mendes' best known joints, All that disco shit, Elton John, and Stevie's signature works, but creatively nothing compares to the 80's. If there was a boundary to push, the musicians in the 80's pushed it. They took new technologies and created new works that couldn't have been done before.

Every genre I can think of pushed the envelope back then in ways no other decade has done since.
 
I’m a music nerd by nature & IMO the 80’s was the genesis of a lot of musics landscape today for better or worse. I bump a lot of 80’s shit especially R&B/rap. While the 90’s got a special place in my heart since I grew up during that decade I’m going with 79-88.

Yeah the Rap/Hip Hop that came out in the 90s was more polished because they were working with bigger budgets. By the early 90s It had been proven that Hip Hop wasn't just a fad so Major labels were willing to put more money into recording budgets and sample clearances. Also hiring producers (Illmatic had the best producers in the industry).

But in the 80s, the labels didn't see the vision that Russell Simmons saw. As a result most 80s rap albums were done on a shoestring budget. I mean how can you compare an album that was recorded by renting a studio for two hours at a time vs an album that was recorded by renting out the studio for two months?

So the rap albums were more polished, and there were more rap albums in the 90s. I mean you can name all the rap albums that came out in the 80s. I doubt you could name all the rap albums that came out in the 90s. (I'd be impressed if you could name all the albums that came out on No Limit without doing a google search)

But having said all of that, early 80s R&B>>>90s R&B

And The Hip Hop that came out in the 80s>>>90s Hip Hop, even if 90s Rap was more polished, it wasn't devastating to the ear like it was in the 80s.
 
Fam, I'm only a year older than you but I can very clearly remember the music in the 70's.

I didn't vote for the 70's 'cause I'm looking at music as a musician more than anything else. That's not to say that the 70's didn't have classics and all that; it did. The 70's gave us Parliament/Funkadelic, Bride of Funkenstein, Deep Purple's best work, Sergio Mendes' best known joints, All that disco shit, Elton John, and Stevie's signature works, but creatively nothing compares to the 80's. If there was a boundary to push, the musicians in the 80's pushed it. They took new technologies and created new works that couldn't have been done before.

Every genre I can think of pushed the envelope back then in ways no other decade has done since.


I remember a few songs from the late 70s like Love TKO, AIn't No Stopping Us Now, Good Times, Rappers Delight, Ring My Bell, Flashlight, etc. But those songs came out in the late 70s. What I meant to say is that I don't really remember the first half of the decade and to be honest I started noticing music around 78/79 when I started Kindergarten.


But I do remember when Rapper's Delight came out. I vividly remember it because they were rapping over the Good Times beat and I could understand the lyrics and I was aware that the beat was from Good Times.
 
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I remember a few songs from the late 80s like Love TKO, AIn't No Stopping Us Now, Good Times, Rappers Delight, Ring My Bell, Flashlight, etc. But those songs came out in the late 70s. What I meant to say is that I don't really remember the first half of the decade and to be honest I started noticing music around 78/79 when I started Kindergarten.


But I do remember when Rapper's Delight came out. I vividly remember it because they were rapping over the Good Times beat and I could understand the lyrics and I was aware that the beat was from Good Times.

My household played music almost constantly so I was very aware of music from an early age. It was mostly jazz, but also reggae and soul like Marvin Gaye, Stevie, etc, and when I would go to my father's crib he and my uncles were all into funk and Disco.
 
Fam, I'm only a year older than you but I can very clearly remember the music in the 70's.

I didn't vote for the 70's 'cause I'm looking at music as a musician more than anything else. That's not to say that the 70's didn't have classics and all that; it did. The 70's gave us Parliament/Funkadelic, Bride of Funkenstein, Deep Purple's best work, Sergio Mendes' best known joints, All that disco shit, Elton John, and Stevie's signature works, but creatively nothing compares to the 80's. If there was a boundary to push, the musicians in the 80's pushed it. They took new technologies and created new works that couldn't have been done before.

Every genre I can think of pushed the envelope back then in ways no other decade has done since.

I think with the 80's you had producers who grew up and learned how to play instruments, could read music and understood theory. Then with the new technology they pushed boundaries and created sounds.

Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis in the beginning of the 80's ushering the Minneapolis sound that Prince started

Babyface and LA Reid came along in the late 80's with Babyface cold on the song writing and melodies while LA Reid was nice with the drums and precussions

Teddy Riley combined Hip Hop and R&B to create New Jack Swing

You can't forget about the British artists that made mainstream US success is Sade, Loose, Ends Soul to Soul
 
Thriller - Michael Jackson
Purple Rain - Prince & The Revolution
Rapture - Anita Baker
Born In The USA - Bruce Springsteen
1984 - Van Halen
It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back - Public Enemy
Straight Outta Compton - NWA
Criminal Minded - Boogie Down Productions
Uprising - Bob Marley & The Wailers
In Square Circle - Stevie Wonder


^^^ I'd put those albums up against any 10 albums from any decade

Yeah 80's was dope but..

Songs In the Key Of Life
The Dark Side of the Moon
What’s Going On
Off the Wall
Bitches Brew
Superfly
There's a Riot Goin' on
One Nation Under a Groove
I'm Still In Love With You
Exodus

70's was dropping classics.
 
I'm inclined to think that the people who voted for the 90s grew up in the 90s.

I lived through the 80s, 90s, 00s and 10s (I was born in 73 but I can't claim to remember what music was like in that decade). Having lived through the 80s, Hip Hop was devastating to the ear. There was nothing like Hip Hop in the 80s.

Except the 90's.

When lyricism and production shot past the 80's
 
Yeah 80's was dope but..

Songs In the Key Of Life
The Dark Side of the Moon
What’s Going On
Off the Wall
Bitches Brew
Superfly
There's a Riot Goin' on
One Nation Under a Groove
I'm Still In Love With You
Exodus

70's was dropping classics.

All that's true, and there's no denying any of it, but the 80's expanded on what music could even sound like, plus then you had genres of music mixing and whatnot i.e. Run DMC's Walk this Way and King of Rock, KC Flightt's Planet E, the whole Hip House movement, R&B artists over "Smooth Jazz" track ultimately creating that "quiet storm" sound, Herbie Hancock's experiments with Rock It, Hip Hop's Electro-infused genesis combining Kraftwerk's Electronic sound with hip hop lyricism and born out of that was the "Freestyle" genre with tracks like Debbie Deb's "When I Hear Music".

Music kept evolving and changing in the 80's.
 
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Yeah 80's was dope but..

Songs In the Key Of Life
The Dark Side of the Moon
What’s Going On
Off the Wall
Bitches Brew
Superfly
There's a Riot Goin' on
One Nation Under a Groove
I'm Still In Love With You
Exodus

70's was dropping classics.

No doubt. The albums you listed are my favorites, especially What's Going On. I'd say 70s R&B>>>80s R&B. But what tips the scale for me is how Hip Hop evolved from 79-88. At the beginning of the decade there were two styles of Hip Hop. The first style were live tapes recorded in the parks or nightclubs in Harlem and The Bronx. Groups like Cold Crush, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious 5, The Treacherous Three, Crash Crew, Fearless Four, Funky 4+1, Africa Bambaattaa & The Soulsonic Force and Master Don & The Def Committee were mixing records and rapping over them.

It was a completely new style of music and there had never been anything like it. There were groups like The Last Poets and Gil Scott Heron, but they didn't really rap on the one and they had actual musicians backing them, which isn't a bad thing but it wasn't Hip Hop.

And then the second style of Hip Hop was Rap Music which is what The Sugarhill Gang and Kurtis Blow were doing. They were going to the recording studio with a band backing them. The music was produced like R&B at first but by the mid 80s Rap Music had evolved into its own style. Songs like The Message, Sucker MCs, 8 Million Stories, The Bridge Is Over, those songs had no father to their style. It was completely new and different.


All that's true, and there's no denying any of it, but the 80's expanded on what music could even sound like, plus then you had genres of music mixing and whatnot i.e. Run DMC's Walk this Way and King of Rock, KC Flightt's Planet E, the whole Hip House movement, R&B artists over "Smooth Jazz" track ultimately creating that whole "quiet storm" sound, Herbie Hancock's experiments with Rock It, Hip Hop's whole Electro-infused genesis combining Kraftwerk's Electronic sound with hip hop lyricism and born out of that was the whole "Freestyle" genre with tracks like Debbie Deb's "When I Hear Music".

Music kept evolving and changing in the 80's.

Yeah, the way Hip Hop evolved in the 80s is unlike anything from any other decade.
 
Fam, I'm only a year older than you but I can very clearly remember the music in the 70's.

I didn't vote for the 70's 'cause I'm looking at music as a musician more than anything else. That's not to say that the 70's didn't have classics and all that; it did. The 70's gave us Parliament/Funkadelic, Bride of Funkenstein, Deep Purple's best work, Sergio Mendes' best known joints, All that disco shit, Elton John, and Stevie's signature works, but creatively nothing compares to the 80's. If there was a boundary to push, the musicians in the 80's pushed it. They took new technologies and created new works that couldn't have been done before.

Every genre I can think of pushed the envelope back then in ways no other decade has done since.

They had the benefit of never before seen technology though. Even the stuff we have now is just improved versions of what they had
 
1969-1978 was some shit tho, don't sleep

Jimi Hendrix "Band of Gypsys". "Machine Gun" is arguably his greatest masterpiece and the greatest guitar solo ever.

PEAK James Brown

PEAK Marvin Gaye


PEAK David Bowie

between the Golden Age of Funk and Bob James you had the genesis of what would become Hip-Hop...........niggas will rap over Funky Drummer and Nautilus samples 1,000 years from now.

Queen, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath. NOBODY fuckin with a Queen arena concert.
 
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