Met up with a friend last night here in lovely San Francisco and, as always, the conversation quickly turned to music. The fun topic of the night was “what was music’s best and worst decade?” This is a conversation you can have with almost anyone and get all kinds of interesting answers, but the Fort twisted the game a little bit when he said it would be a better idea to classify decades by the fives, i.e., 1945-1954, 1955-1964, etc. This actually made a ton of sense and we agreed almost immediately that music’s most fertile and creative decade was the period between 1965 and 1974. As for the worst, we also agreed quickly that 1985-1994 was, without question, the worst.
Our dining venue was a cool little place called Nick’s Crispy Tacos. For $23 bucks total, we got three tacos, two beers and a small basket of nachos with fresh pico-de-gallo on top. Surprisingly good. Never let it be said that I like to abuse expense accounts on food while on the road. Ask.com will be proud of me.
By the way, I was eyeing the room service menu this morning and discovered to my horror that if you want a waffle and syrup delivered to you room, it’s $17. My goodness.
Not so fast… 85-95, while generally not the best decade for music was, arguably, one of the most fertile decades for pop/rock music creativity. Remember, that time period gave us the launch of major music movements for better or for worse: Punk matured (X, Fear, Alice Bag Band, Dead Kennedys, etc…), Rap Music took off (Run DMC, NWA, Public Enemy, Beastie Boys, etc…), Electronic music, World music, New Wave, and Grunge all took off in that period. Everybody remembers the bad hair bands, but without Elvis Costello, Pixies, Sonic Youth, X, Jane's Addiction, Public Enemy, Kinks, Sugar, Pretenders, REM, U2, Talking Heads, and Nirvana, the “alternative” music scene of 95-05 doesn't happen. I'll even take the big-pop scene of Michael Jackson, Prince, Madonna, Bruce Springsteen, over 95-05 Boy Bands, Britney Spears, and Chr Aggulara. Stop drinking yo' haterade! 85-95 rocks! Young
Not so fast… 85-95, while generally not the best decade for music was, arguably, one of the most fertile decades for pop/rock music creativity. Remember, that time period gave us the launch of major music movements for better or for worse: Punk matured (X, Fear, Alice Bag Band, Dead Kennedys, etc…), Rap Music took off (Run DMC, NWA, Public Enemy, Beastie Boys, etc…), Electronic music, World music, New Wave, and Grunge all took off in that period. Everybody remembers the bad hair bands, but without Elvis Costello, Pixies, Sonic Youth, X, Jane’s Addiction, Public Enemy, Kinks, Sugar, Pretenders, REM, U2, Talking Heads, and Nirvana, the “alternative” music scene of 95-05 doesn’t happen. I’ll even take the big-pop scene of Michael Jackson, Prince, Madonna, Bruce Springsteen, over 95-05 Boy Bands, Britney Spears, and Chr Aggulara. Stop drinking yo’ haterade! 85-95 rocks! Young
An awful lot of those bands you're citing were more interesting before 1985 than after 1985. Compare:
pre-85: Wild Gift, Thriller, Pretenders I, Speaking in Tongues, This Year's Model, Nebraska
post-85: See How We Are, Bad, Get Close, True Stories, Blood Chocolate, Tunnel of Love (and I'm really trying to pick good ones here)
Am I missing something on post-1985 Kinks?
An awful lot of those bands you’re citing were more interesting before 1985 than after 1985. Compare:
pre-85: Wild Gift, Thriller, Pretenders I, Speaking in Tongues, This Year’s Model, Nebraska
post-85: See How We Are, Bad, Get Close, True Stories, Blood & Chocolate, Tunnel of Love (and I’m really trying to pick good ones here)
Am I missing something on post-1985 Kinks?