By fayette (152.163.188.68) on Saturday, March 15, 2003 - 08:35 am:

looking back over the years,can you tell me
your favorite decade you've enjoyed music and
why.60's,70's,80's,90's,and 2000

By Ritchie (62.254.0.9) on Saturday, March 15, 2003 - 08:54 am:

My favourite decade HAS to be the sixties. I'm guessing that the bulk of my collection is music recorded in that those years. 'Current' music started to become less interesting to me towards the end of the seventies, and by the eighties I'd more or less accepted that my interest was becoming more retropective. By the nineties I was paying only lip-service to current trends, and digging into the past was my main concern. In 2003, very little interests me on the current scene, and virtually every CD I buy today is either a reissue or a compilation of vintage material. Having said all that, R Kelly's "Chocolate Factory" is playing, so I guess I'm not a total archaeologist :o)

By soulboy (213.105.242.198) on Saturday, March 15, 2003 - 09:03 am:

I wasn't really old enough to appreciate the 60s music at the time (b1961) but it definitely left an impression on me that lasts to this day.
The 70s were also good years for music with philly,and dare i say it, yes certain elements of disco.
The 80s i also remember had some great pop and soul music,but looking back the synth pop of that era now seems incredibly dated.and for me doesn't stand the test of time.
As far as the 90s is concerned less said the better. grunge,rap,techno-pop,brit-pop,and generally music to slash your wrists to.
Too early to make an assesment of 2000 music,
Overall i would say that the 60s WAS the best and most innovative eras in popular music, i think it was a unique moment in time that may never be repeated.

By Nish (170.224.224.134) on Saturday, March 15, 2003 - 09:14 am:

The music of the 60s is by FAR my favorite. A seemingly neverending supply of talent and youthful energy characterizes the era. In addition to the great soul music, Sinatra, Fitzgerald, McRae, etc. were still recording, so you still had Tin Pan alley going on; then of course the classic pop sounds of the beach boys, frankie valli, etc. thrown in there makes the sixties the home of all my favorite kinds of music.

I also love the fifties, the doo-wop era and true rock n' roll.

By Eli (151.197.40.194) on Saturday, March 15, 2003 - 11:23 am:

For me, it was the sixties, with the onset of Motown and Stax Phil Spector, the brill Building, Bacharach, Scepter, and the heyday of Atlantic and a wide veriety of all musical genres.
Although I was part of the seventies, my heart will always be in the sixties.

By BankHouseDave (195.93.50.9) on Saturday, March 15, 2003 - 01:21 pm:

The 60s hands down for all the reasons Eli says. They were the years of fusion when jazz, r&b, classical, folk and 'popular' all got together and created something above and beyond. Reggae, soul, folk-rock, heavy metal, prog-rock, classic rock - you'd be hard put to it to find a genre today that didn't come into being in that decade, Not a few also reached their zenith around then. The best thing that happened since is the progress in sound technology that enables us to hear it all better than we did in the first place!

By fayette (64.12.97.7) on Saturday, March 15, 2003 - 02:51 pm:

i best years would be the sixties even though,
i was too young to fully appreciate the likes
of sam cook jackie wilson,clyde mcphatter and others. thanks to my parents introducing these
artist by way of music, i grew into understanding
and appreciated the music decade they represented.

By ErikT.O. (64.228.108.42) on Saturday, March 15, 2003 - 04:24 pm:

I dig the 60's & 70's music most, particularly late 60's & early 70's, although I've finally warmed up to a little disco over the last decade or so... I loathe the 80's for its' lasting and devastating effects (so to speak) on music- those awful drums and those chintzy keyboard sounds that make midi horns sound realistic by comparison! I think we kissed goodbye the notion of a singer having to at least be able to carry a tune. Absolutely depressing, so few singers can sing anymore and ladies my mother's age and older sing better than the Britney's and Avril's of the world, it makes me wander if it will wither away (good singing) like some lost tribal art of extracting dye from some now-extinct plant...
In an interview from Guitar magazine (I think!) from the late 70's, Frank Zappa was asked what he thought of the future of the music biz & he said we were entering an age when record companies would look at an artist's or band's picture when deciding whom to sign. Hmph... speaking of Frank Zappa, actually I'll start another thread... /Erik

By dvdmike (12.84.119.246) on Saturday, March 15, 2003 - 06:40 pm:

In the sixties, I was in grammar school and Motown was what was happening as well as Sam Cooke, Jackie Wilson and Chicago Soul including The Impressions, Jerry Butler, Betty Everett, Gene Chandler, The Dells, The Chi-Lites and Major Lance.

In the seventies, I was in high school and listening to Motown, The Blackbyrds, Earth, Wind & Fire, P-Funk, The Dramatics, Chicago, Steely Dan, The Emotions and The Sound Of Philadelphia.

Those were my two favorite decades of music. Then the eighties came and all that Georgio Moroder crap.

By STUBASS (64.12.97.7) on Sunday, March 16, 2003 - 01:37 am:

FAYETTE: HOW DID I ALMOST PASS THIS ONE UP???...I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN IT WAS YOU!!!...O.K.!!!...FOR ME...IT WOULD HAVE TO BE THE 60'S...BECAUSE MUSIC PLAYED A BIG PART OF MY LIFE DURING THAT DECADE WHEN I WAS CULTURALLY IMPRESSIONABLE!!!...I ENJOYED LEARNING ABOUT VARIOUS TYPES OF MUSIC...AND PLAYING THE MUSIC THAT I ENJOYED THE BEST!!!...DURING THE 60'S...MUSIC WAS MUCH MORE OF AN OVERALL INFLUENCE IN MY EVERYDAY LIFESTYLE THAN LATER...WHEN I WAS NO LONGER PERSONALLY INVOLVED SO MUCH...AND MUSIC BECAME MORE OF AN ACCOMPANIMENT TO THE SOUNDTACK OF MY LIFE...RATHER THAN A CENTRAL FOCUS!!!...DID I MAKE ANY SENSE???...STU(REFORMED MUSICIAN)BASS

By fayette (64.12.97.7) on Sunday, March 16, 2003 - 01:53 am:

stubass i understand you like the back of
my hand

By David Meikle (62.252.128.6) on Sunday, March 16, 2003 - 05:07 am:

I created a spreadsheet from my cd collection 8 years ago.

I was able to sort it by Arranger, Producer, Songwriter etc etc.

Once I sorted it by year, 1966 was the best and the most prolific.

By John Lester (213.123.152.158) on Sunday, March 16, 2003 - 05:15 am:

David..

Were the arrangers blank for the Motown releases?

By David Meikle (62.252.128.6) on Sunday, March 16, 2003 - 12:59 pm:

Yes John.

Only writers and producers were credited.

By douglasm (68.113.15.28) on Sunday, March 16, 2003 - 01:44 pm:

I'm inclined to agree with Stu (?!!) on this one. In the '60's and early '70's, as a teenager and young adult, music was a part of the entire cultural "thing". Radio was an integral part of life through Keener and CK and on through WABX, and although not a musician, radio and the music it played were part and parcel of the experience of "growing up".

By Eli (151.197.5.122) on Sunday, March 16, 2003 - 02:35 pm:

I can plainly rember the day when a friend of mine from the "hood" came over and said:
"yo Eli, there's this new company in Detroit called Motown and I got one of their records and you should check it out. There's this guy Berry Gordy runnin it and he's the guy who wrote all of Jackie wilsons s**t!!"
The record was Bye Bye Baby on the pink label and I was hooked ever since!!

The first time that I heard mention of Hitsville was when Mary Wells was on Bandstand when Dick Clark asked her where she records her stuff.

Later around 1966 I heard the name Lebaron Taylor for the first time from a bass player friend name Ralph Downs who was nicknamed "Motown" because of his playing although he was "busier " than Jamerson.
Ralph,future Funkedelic Tiki Fulwwod and myself did a lot of gigs together during that time.
WHO KNEW?????

By R&B (138.238.41.118) on Monday, March 17, 2003 - 12:22 pm:

FOR ME IT WOULD HAVE TO BE THE SIXTIES WHEN ALL THE GREATS THAT WE DISCUSS TODAY WERE IN THIER PRIMES AND THE MUSIC WAS ALIVE.THE EARLY TO MID 70'S WERE NOT BAD,BUT FOR ME THE SIXTIES

By stephanie (64.63.221.70) on Monday, March 17, 2003 - 04:15 pm:

I would have to say the sixties because mainly Motown and the Wall of Sound and the Girl Groups
The ONE thing I do like about the 70s is the singer songwriter era Carly Simon and Carole King and James Taylor and Paul Simon and Roberta Flack and people like that. I also like the bubble gum and the innoncence like Bobby Sherman and David Cassidy and the Cowsills and so on and so forth.
I also liked the bubblegum of the J5 and the Osmonds and its too bad we dont have that innocence today with maybe the exception of a kid who came out named Charlotte Church who is a great singer by the way and she is a teenager now.
Stephanie

By TonyRussi (68.18.230.25) on Monday, March 17, 2003 - 04:40 pm:

My fave is ofcourse the60's...the age of the artists and us fans were pretty close(as well as most of the writers, producers)I think the music was more original and thank God it was real music with instruments and no computers & drum machines!

By Livonia Ken (136.2.1.153) on Monday, March 17, 2003 - 05:05 pm:

There's lots of great music from all of those decades, of course, popular and otherwise, but the 80s (which included my high school and college years) was kind of a hard decade for me to really appreciate R&B/soul music. The production seemed to get too slick and syntheic for my tastes and even artists who were very successful and whose voices I liked (such as Luther Vandross) found themselves in musical settings that were frequently not to my tatse. Anita Baker was a notable oasis in this synthesized "quiet storm", though.

Regards,
Ken

By Typo Ken (136.2.1.153) on Monday, March 17, 2003 - 05:07 pm:

Tatse? Oops! I meant taste.

Grrr. Sigh.

By KevGo (64.115.26.80) on Monday, March 17, 2003 - 06:07 pm:

Although I was born in the mid-1960s & my recollection of that decade is next to nil, musically I would place the 1960s as the tops for music. It seemed that pop music was exploding from every corner of the USA and overseas and it was the time for experimenting (mixing genres & styles).

I do agree with Ken regarding the 1980s. There were few artists I listened to who emerged during that decade because I was so turned off by the slickness of music production. I dug New Edition because they reminded me so much of the early Jackson 5. Anita Baker was such a breath of fresh air with her voice and production (using more acoustic piano, jazz guitar, bass & drums, less synths). The only 1980s band I listened to other than Prince & the Revolution was Great Britain's Style Council ("My Ever Changing Moods").

Kevin Goins - KevGo