Is this Pop Musics golden era?

1stimpressions

Zamboni wrote: »

If we were rating decades.

1st 60's
2nd 70's
3rd 90's
4th 00's
5th 80's

agreement!

Pighead

ZakAttak wrote: »

==>Magazines? The print industry is up to its neck in sh1t right now- nobody buys magazines anymore (cos of the interweb), so in order to pull in readers they have been forced to print articles featuring more mainstream artists that people are familiar with. Many people used to buy mags cos it was the only way of finding out about bands and music they didn't know about. But nowadays if you want info. like that you'd be better off going to a website of some sort. So mags have been left with the option of printing stuff about commercial pop music, its the only way they can sell magazines.

You're right, this hasn't been the case before- but its got nothing to do with the music.

Get with the times.

Ah right so website reviews are where it's at. Fair enough.
http://www.rollingstone.com/reviews/album/11370393/futuresexlovesounds
http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/record_review/38447-justin-timberlake-futuresex-lovesounds

noby

Zamboni wrote: »

If we were rating decades.

1st 60's
2nd 70's
3rd 90's
4th 00's
5th 80's

Without opening the whole 'genre' can of worms, are you speaking strictly pop here, or all music?

Pighead

noby wrote: »

Without opening the whole 'genre' can of worms, are you speaking strictly pop here, or all music?

I'd imagine he's talking all genres. No way could he have the 70's in second place if it were just pop he was talking about. The 70's was a musical graveyard for pop.

Mr. Presentable

Pighead wrote: »

Never before has their been so many insanely catchy and well produced pop gems. R+B/Hip Hop stars like Timbaland, Kanye West etc have jumped on board the pop bandwagon to thrilling effect and are constantly throwing out insanely catchy tunes with the ease of a toddler throwing his toys out of the pram.

Pighead wrote: »

A golden era implies a time when something is at it's most popular. Nothing to do with personal choice. Pigheads just saying it as he sees it.

So, is Pighead saying tis a Golden era because he likes the tunes or because of sales volumes?

If the former, why that's just opinion, if the latter - and I stand open to correction on this - sales of singles are at their worst since the genre started.

ZakAttak

Pighead wrote: »

Ah right so website reviews are where it's at. Fair enough.

==>I never said they were that.webstes? I wouldn't bother with most of them, if you like them go ahead, knock yourself out, but I personally wouldn't waste my time with them- it was you who was using magazines to support your crap argument. I was making the point that magazines don't have much of an option but to print this stuff so they can make money.

All the same you picked 2 bad examples for yourself- Rolling Stone is a print magazine as well, so that would support my argument. And in Pitchfork many of the reviews are written by fans of the music rather than music journalists- which is hardly unbiased.

jaykay74

well for me its the 80's everytime for pop. No need to talk about individual artists too many decent pop tunes, loads of excellent 1 hit wonders. Just pick up any Now compilation from 1 to when SAW messed it up late 80's.

ZakAttak

Pighead wrote: »

Ok then fair enough, obviously all the above is just Pigheads opinion, not saying it's written in stone or anything. So when do you think has been the best time for pop music thus far? If you don't think it's this decade you obviously have another time in mind.

==>I think there is good music and bad music- regardless of the decade. I certainly don't think Grunge is not rock music because it wasn't around during the 70s.

Glassheart

The last decade has been by far the worst for pop music.

It's been a downhill slide since Hit Me Baby One More Time and i can't see it ever clawing it's way back.

Whatever happened to melody?

DarkJager

The 00's has so far been the worst decade for music IMO. Its all just pent up angsty females ranting about men. The 80's wins by far and thats because the majority of those songs still sound good today. 20 years from now, not one single of the last 8 years is going to be in anyones mind.

ZakAttak

DarkJager wrote: »

The 00's has so far been the worst decade for music IMO. Its all just pent up angsty females ranting about men. The 80's wins by far and thats because the majority of those songs still sound good today. 20 years from now, not one single of the last 8 years is going to be in anyones mind.

==>Not even Crazy Frog?

noby

ZakAttak wrote: »

==>Not even Crazy Frog?

It'll take about twenty years to get it out of my head for good.

Latchy

Howard the Duck wrote: »

Nope i don;t think so i think the 60's was the golden era of pop.

The Shangri-Las
The Beach Boys
The Beatles
Elton John
The Supremes and Diana Ross
The Monkees
Elvis Presley
The Bee Gees
Frankie Valli & Four Seasons
Bobby Darin
Donovan
The Ronettes
The Shirelles

You might say some of these bands aren;t pop .. but they were all very popular bands. And pick up any 60s of the numerous 60s compilations and you'll see the quality of the pops songs.

Have to agree .Add the Who, Supremes, mamas and papas ,Dylan ,stevie wonder, Hollies , tremloes , searchers ,dusty sprigfield ,rolling stones and many many more to boot .The 70s also produced some great bands

ZakAttak

noby wrote: »

It'll take about twenty years to get it out of my head for good.

==>I feel a strange sense of satisfaction for having put it back there.

If you haven't heard 'Crazy Frog Love songs' (oh yes, it exists) then you haven't lived.

jaykay74

latchyco wrote: »

Have to agree .Add the Who, Supremes, mamas and papas ,Dylan ,stevie wonder, Hollies , tremloes , searchers ,dusty sprigfield ,rolling stones and many many more to boot .The 70s also produced some great bands

I suppose everyone has a different idea on what pop is and I'm not going to argue. good list of bands though.

Latchy

The word pop was coined in the 60s as a short for popular culture so we had pop music /bands .Today music is just a foreruner of whats gone before . How many modern mixs have sampled 60s 70s 80s tracks ? The 60s i think will always be the yardstick for pop music which is probably harder to define today .But as you say not really open to arguement .People will like what they like regardless of which decade it comes from .

Xavi6

80s was where cheesy pop was at it's best.

Atomic Kitten have covered The Bangles.

Girls Aloud did Belinda Carlisle.

Even Wheatus did Erasure.

I could go on.

Why did they cover them? Because they are top quality pop songs that have stood the test of time. No one going to cover feckin Rhianna in 20 years time.

Dudess

Tastes, opinions and all that...

If, with the term "golden era", we're talking in terms of the quality - in general - of chart music, my personal choice would be the late 70s/early 80s - '77 to '83 or thereabouts. Some punk was getting lots of airplay, then there was the likes of Stiff Records: Elvis Costello & The Attractions, Ian Dury & The Blockheads, Squeeze. There was Blondie, Gary Numan/Tubeway Army, Kate Bush debuted Wuthering Heights in '78, the Jam. 2Tone (ska): The Beat, The Specials, Madness. There was Dexy's Midnight Runners, the really good quality New Romantic stuff (Soft Cell, Visage's Fade To Grey, Japan, early Spandau and Ultravox were class, Heaven 17, Human League - quality pop). Stuff on the Postcard label up in Scotland like Orange Juice and Altered Images, Kim Wilde was the equivalent of Rihanna at the time - no comparison, and Duran Duran were pretty much the boyband of that era - Beethoven-esque compared to Weslife...

All this stuff wasn't just acclaimed at the time, it was in the top 10.

And as Thatcherism gained a hold and people became richer and greedier there really was a marked change in pop music - things started to get so bad from '84. Kinda sums up for me the whole notion of a recession leading to better music...

The 90s, in my opinion, was an absolutely atrocious decade for chart/pop music - apart from 1990 (some cracking tunes that year and Madchester was in the air). 1991 makes me shudder though, 1996 worse again.

Right now there is some truly appalling stuff doing the rounds - as bad as, if not worse than, the 90s. However I see what Pighead's saying too: there is some really good slick funk/R&B - Timbaland and the Neptunes being pretty much solely responsible for it. And yeah, some other random good tunes this decade: Stronger by Sugababes is fantastic, as is All The Things She Said by tAtU. Have to admit I also found the first two Girls Aloud singles absolutely great.

Blisterman

Xavi6 wrote: »

No one going to cover feckin Rhianna in 20 years time.

I hope boards.ie is around in 20 years, because you're going to be sorely mistaken.

I bet no one 20 years ago,though anyone would cover the likes of Soft Cell and Duran Duran.

Xavi6

Blisterman wrote: »

I hope boards.ie is around in 20 years, because you're going to be sorely mistaken.

I bet no one 20 years ago,though anyone would cover the likes of Soft Cell and Duran Duran.

Alas you're probably right. If only there was a way to erase her from memory.

Dudess

In fact Umbrella has already been covered - by the Manic Street Preachers.

Pighead

Dudess wrote: »

Tastes, opinions and all that...

If, with the term "golden era", we're talking in terms of the quality - in general - of chart music, my personal choice would be the late 70s/early 80s - '77 to '83 or thereabouts. Some punk was getting lots of airplay, then there was the likes of Stiff Records: Elvis Costello & The Attractions, Ian Dury & The Blockheads, Squeeze. There was Blondie, Gary Numan/Tubeway Army, Kate Bush debuted Wuthering Heights in '78, the Jam. 2Tone (ska): The Beat, The Specials, Madness. There was Dexy's Midnight Runners, the really good quality New Romantic stuff (Soft Cell, Visage's Fade To Grey, Japan, early Spandau and Ultravox were class, Heaven 17, Human League - quality pop). Stuff on the Postcard label up in Scotland like Orange Juice and Altered Images, Kim Wilde was the equivalent of Rihanna at the time - no comparison, and Duran Duran were pretty much the boyband of that era - Beethoven-esque compared to Weslife...

All this stuff wasn't just acclaimed at the time, it was in the top 10.

And as Thatcherism gained a hold and people became richer and greedier there really was a marked change in pop music - things started to get so bad from '84. Kinda sums up for me the whole notion of a recession leading to better music...

The 90s, in my opinion, was an absolutely atrocious decade for chart/pop music - apart from 1990 (some cracking tunes that year and Madchester was in the air). 1991 makes me shudder though, 1996 worse again.

Right now there is some truly appalling stuff doing the rounds - as bad as, if not worse than, the 90s. However I see what Pighead's saying too: there is some really good slick funk/R&B - Timbaland and the Neptunes being pretty much solely responsible for it. And yeah, some other random good tunes this decade: Stronger by Sugababes is fantastic, as is All The Things She Said by tAtU. Have to admit I also found the first two Girls Aloud singles absolutely great.

As you've already stated the 80's loses lots of marks due to the dross that was released from the mid 80's on. Rick Astley, Kylie, Jason and every other actor from Neighbours were bothering the charts with remarkable consistency. Those songs wouldn't have a look in these days. The bar has been raised and we're being spoiled these days when it comes to decent pop tunes.

Nailz

Dudess wrote: »

The 90s, in my opinion, was an absolutely atrocious decade for chart/pop music - apart from 1990 (some cracking tunes that year and Madchester was in the air). 1991 makes me shudder though, 1996 worse again.

Ah dudess, gotta love ya! But 1995 wasn't that bad, Blacke Grape releast "It's Great When You're Straight... Yeah" that year and it was a brilliant album, I think it got one of the Album of the Year awards anyway!!

Earthhorse

Pighead wrote: »

As you've already stated the 80's loses lots of marks due to the dross that was released from the mid 80's on. Rick Astley, Kylie, Jason and every other actor from Neighbours were bothering the charts with remarkable consistency. Those songs wouldn't have a look in these days. The bar has been raised and we're being spoiled these days when it comes to decent pop tunes.

The 80's gains a lot of marks for having Michael Jackson, Madonna and Prince all operating at their peak, and they're kind of like the triumviate of quality pop.

Timberlake, Girls Aloud et al, may be an improvement on the recent past but they can't hold a candle to the likes of the above.

KrazeeEyezKilla

Pop has improved this decade but anything would be better than the late 90's. There is still some awful stuff around even from the 'credible' ones. For every Umbrella theres a Take a Bow and for every No Good Advice theres Walk this Way.

There was more variety in major bands/singers in the 80's. There were great popstars like Michael Jackson and Madonna. Prince who was able to cover many different styles. U2 were much better than the current bands trying to emulate them. Many people are influenced by Springsteen but none of them could match his quality while selling huge numbers of albums. I don't think a Guns 'n' Roses or AC-DC would have the same popularity today. They would be more niche bands.

Even in the early 90's there were the likes of REM becomming huge. U2 could release an album like Actung Baby and sell over 15 million. Even the likes of NIN, Alice in Chains, the Smashing Pumpkins could go multi-platinum. Today they would be giving there albums away for free on the internet with little chance of gaining new fans.

There have a lot of good pop songs this decade but the 80's still is the best era for pop.

Nailz

KrazeeEyezKilla wrote: »

Pop has improved this decade but anything would be better than the late 90's. There is still some awful stuff around even from the 'credible' ones. For every Umbrella theres a Take a Bow and for every No Good Advice theres Walk this Way.

There was more variety in major bands/singers in the 80's. There were great popstars like Michael Jackson and Madonna. Prince who was able to cover many different styles. U2 were much better than the current bands trying to emulate them. Many people are influenced by Springsteen but none of them could match his quality while selling huge numbers of albums. I don't think a Guns 'n' Roses or AC-DC would have the same popularity today.

Yeah that is quite a good point, but IMO this decades pop isn't going to be rememered in another decades time, the same as to what happened to the late 90's. It might be better than then, but IMO it's still rather ****.

Hey lad, where you from?

nyarlothothep

60s pop has its own charm and is very ingeniously written in some cases so I prefer 60s style stuff to 00s. Like Please Please Me is cool with the descending harmonized melody and the rising rock guitar chords which give it an edge. Really cool, also some mo-town stuff from that era. I guess I prefer it mostly as well because rock especially around the early 60s was kinda tied up with pop so its just rock I like.

Howard the Duck

To me pop music is chart music. I think the chart music of the 00's has been awful. Justin Timberlake can die of the pox for all i care. "RnB" as the kids call it seems to be missing it's rhythm and blues and is all samples and beat boxing.
I liked "push the button" by sugababes but their other songs do nothing for me.
I think Atomic Kitten had a few good songs thanks to Andy McCluskey from OMD.


I have good memories of the 90's as it's when i started to get into music in a big way. And i remember the mid 90's being all about bands as it was "britpop" time. If you look at the "shine" compilations you can see the quality of the pop songs. And these were pop bands and they made chart music. The record companies in the UK couldn't get enough of them and were signing every indie type band they could get their hands on.

My memories of the 80's aren't that good when if comes to music but i was very young. All i remember is big hair on MTV and listening to my brothers Bruce Springsteen records. I also remember my sister trying and failing to dress me like a member of Bros.

I've been listening to stuff from the 60's and 70's since a very young age thanks mostly to my mothers records and thats why i think it was the best decade when it comes to pop. My ipod is still filled with stuff from the 60's and 70's.

I still listen to music from all decades but not much of it was chart music apart from the stuff from the 60's and 70's.

kerash

Dudess wrote: »

Tastes, opinions and all that...

If, with the term "golden era", we're talking in terms of the quality - in general - of chart music, my personal choice would be the late 70s/early 80s - '77 to '83 or thereabouts. Some punk was getting lots of airplay, then there was the likes of Stiff Records: Elvis Costello & The Attractions, Ian Dury & The Blockheads, Squeeze. There was Blondie, Gary Numan/Tubeway Army, Kate Bush debuted Wuthering Heights in '78, the Jam. 2Tone (ska): The Beat, The Specials, Madness. There was Dexy's Midnight Runners, the really good quality New Romantic stuff (Soft Cell, Visage's Fade To Grey, Japan, early Spandau and Ultravox were class, Heaven 17, Human League - quality pop). Stuff on the Postcard label up in Scotland like Orange Juice and Altered Images, Kim Wilde was the equivalent of Rihanna at the time - no comparison, and Duran Duran were pretty much the boyband of that era - Beethoven-esque compared to Weslife...

All this stuff wasn't just acclaimed at the time, it was in the top 10.

And as Thatcherism gained a hold and people became richer and greedier there really was a marked change in pop music - things started to get so bad from '84. Kinda sums up for me the whole notion of a recession leading to better music...

The 90s, in my opinion, was an absolutely atrocious decade for chart/pop music - apart from 1990 (some cracking tunes that year and Madchester was in the air). 1991 makes me shudder though, 1996 worse again.

Right now there is some truly appalling stuff doing the rounds - as bad as, if not worse than, the 90s. However I see what Pighead's saying too: there is some really good slick funk/R&B - Timbaland and the Neptunes being pretty much solely responsible for it. And yeah, some other random good tunes this decade: Stronger by Sugababes is fantastic, as is All The Things She Said by tAtU. Have to admit I also found the first two Girls Aloud singles absolutely great.

Most of what I listen to now is 70's/80's or new music so I'd mostly agree with you there Dudess, however Massive Attack released Blue lines (unfinished sympathy) in 1991 - that saves the year! Actually the early 90's was probably the better half, with some classics, although I doubt I'll ever get over Achy Breaky Heart:eek: Blur/Oasis/REM save '94 and possible the remainder of the decade:D

damonjewel

Dudess wrote: »

Tastes, opinions and all that...

If, with the term "golden era", we're talking in terms of the quality - in general - of chart music, my personal choice would be the late 70s/early 80s - '77 to '83 or thereabouts. Some punk was getting lots of airplay, then there was the likes of Stiff Records: Elvis Costello & The Attractions, Ian Dury & The Blockheads, Squeeze. There was Blondie, Gary Numan/Tubeway Army, Kate Bush debuted Wuthering Heights in '78, the Jam. 2Tone (ska): The Beat, The Specials, Madness. There was Dexy's Midnight Runners, the really good quality New Romantic stuff (Soft Cell, Visage's Fade To Grey, Japan, early Spandau and Ultravox were class, Heaven 17, Human League - quality pop). Stuff on the Postcard label up in Scotland like Orange Juice and Altered Images, Kim Wilde was the equivalent of Rihanna at the time - no comparison, and Duran Duran were pretty much the boyband of that era - Beethoven-esque compared to Weslife...

All this stuff wasn't just acclaimed at the time, it was in the top 10.

I Agree with this completely, I loved music as a kid and there was tons of great stuff from th epost punk era. But I think that if you blend this in with what else was going on in the 70's, then it truly was the decade of pop. Throw in Glam rock for the first half of the decade and Disco for the second half. And then of course there is Abba, does anyone think in 20/30 years time there will be someone writing a musical or directing a film centered on the music of a current pop band/act?