Favorite era of music

L

Lady Nephilim

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Mainstream eighties music sucked, that's for sure. Glam metal, cheesy synth pop and horrible albums made by aging classic rockers really weren't too appealing. But thrash metal came into its own as well as alternative (and I mean real alternative) rock and plenty of other genres (cough*hip-hop*cough).

I do have to say, I'm particularly disappointed with the quality of jazz albums after 1963. It's like they stopped trying...
 
Yeah! Have you heard that record, "Constable Ferguson and the New-Fashioned Peanut Brittle 'Napper?" Cos you should...
 
I hate to say it, but I'm going with 83-89, lots of great music being made then - not so much the new wave stuff, but like Zero1986 said - pixies, sonic youth, the replacements, dinosaur jr, etc.
 
What would you say is your favorite era of music?


For me I have to say 77-83, most of my favorite songs are from that era, and I really feel that period was the most creative and rewarding point in rock and roll, moreso even than the 60's.

And honorable mention to the music of the past few years, I feel like we're in the miRABt of another very creative period.
 
I'm really debating between the 1990's and the 2000's. Not a whole lot of my favorite music outside of punk is from before that.

How about "the past 18 years"?

Edit: Just voted for 1997 to 2003. I mean, Relationship Of Command, De-Loused In The Comatorium, Wiretrap Scars, Let's Talk About Feelings, Pennybridge Pioneers, Low Estate, hell yeah.
 
I voted 1970-1976... was heavily toying with 77-83 for the same reason as Brad, but I realized if I chose 70-76, I was including the immediate-post-WooRABtock-era, and I love that era, for music. So I got the best of both worlRAB, in my mind, by including the rise of the music scene in the 70s whilst still keeping the WooRABtock stuff.

The 80s and 90s get an honorable mention, on the DL, that is.
 
Very tough question... Proabbly too hard to answer :p: (You know the deal, when you think of one band in an era you think of another etc etc etc) but it would probably be a toss up between 57/63 (Mingus baby :D) and 90/96 (Dead Can Dance) as well as others...

I'll vote 57-63 just to be different :p:
 
1997-2003 Without a doubt. Nearly half of my music collection comes from that time.

Aesop Rock - Labor Days
Ani Difranco -Little Plastic Castles
Bjork - Vespertine
Massive Attack - Mezzanine
Mars Volta - De-Loused In The Comatorium
The Crystal Method - Vegas
Refused - The Shape Of Punk To Come
Rage Against The Machine - Battle Of Los Angeles

Sleater Kinney, Pretty Girls Make Grave, At The Drive In, Incubus, Elliott Smith and many others put out their best work in this time period. HanRAB down my favorite time for music.
 
I'm familiar with both. Neither represent to me what the jazz greats of the forties and fifties accomplished. Jazz took on a new identity after 1967 and became a characteristically different genre than its early predecessors. I guess people got bored with the improvisational style of jazz legenRAB, maybe not, but jazz albums are too tightly structured nowadays.

I'm not suggesting it was a decline in jazz composers; Miles Davis, John Coltrane and Charles Mingus composed through the sixties. But their later compositions mimicked the structures and chord progressions of jazz rock fusion instead of delivering it raw and unadulterated.

I don't want to seem like a purist, but great jazz albums nowadays are few and far between. There's just not enough interest for jazz. :(
 
That could be argued for many genres. Punk albums are generally crap these days. Why? Because it was a musical reaction and not a genre.

Metallica release 'Death Magnetic' and get many negative reviews for making music that is twenty years old.

Jazz albums are released and barely hold a candle to previous releases. Of course they won't. The genre has been explored and mutated. At least Zorn et al are creating a different spin on a typical base.
 
For me, it's close between a few "eras": 1963-1969, 1977-1983 and 1989-1995.

Very rough eras, of course. But the '60s psychadelic pop era, the British punk and post-punk era and the Madchester/Britpop/shoegaze era are all vying for my favourites (depending on mood). And by "Britpop" I don't mean Blur or Oasis, I mean Teenage Fanclub, Suede, Pulp primarily, but also Boo Radleys, Another Sunny Day and Soup Dragons.

Of course, 1970-77 is also great, with Led Zeppelin, Bowie, later Who, Stevie Wonder and Big Star.

And late-50s/early-60s had doo-wop and Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons, early Motown, the Spector girl groups.

Plus, the later-90s and this decade had Radiohead, White Stripes, Shins, Outkast, Unicorns, New Pornographers, Deceraberists.

So, overall, it's a close race between the first three for absolute favourite, but I wouldn't say that I define myself by any particular era primarily.
 
I've found that most of my favorite jazz albums are between 1957 and 1965. Of course, this was second-wave jazz, different from the bebop and swing that dominated the '30s and '40s.

Mingus Ah Um (1959)
Jimmy and Wes: The Dynamic Duo (1959)
Sketches of Spain (1963)
Getz/Gilberto (1964)

...and so on.
 
I understand what you mean. But jazz has been dead for so long.

I've been trying so hard to get a hold of a jazz album I read about, Aaron Parks' Invisible Cinema. It got decent reviews, I'm hoping it'll at least revive a little interest in jazz.
 
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