Down with the 80's

[il Padrino Ute]

But the chair would listen, dont you see? That;'s the point, no on cared, NOT EVEN THE CHAIR! It makes me weep just thinking about the moment of his realization. Fortunaltely, I ahve always had very caring chairs.

And this is why all creekster needs is this chair.

[BlueHair]

At the risk of alienating myself from il Pad, 80's music sucks. I would have a tough time assembling a top 10 albums from the 80's. The pop/rock music was all that good and it is one of the worst decades for jazz music. In fact, I would say that jazz was basically dead in the 80's with the exception of a few notable Herbie Hancock albums. Good thing that the 90's revived jazz.

Jazz sucks. I would rather listen to country and that is saying a lot. Even the Ute fight song is better than jazz.

[cowboy]

You can find some good music in the seventies. But I judge a decade's music by it's biggest hits. If you look at the pop charts, it was just awful stuff. Debbie Boone? Barbra Streisand? Crystal Gayle? Elton John? It just goes on and on. blech. You have to sift through an awful lot of chaff to get to the good stuff.

That's really funny.

But I agree. Who can take seriously a decade that produced Copacabana and Muskrat Love? But for the Outlaws and John Denver, the decade is completely flushable.

[TripletDaddy]

This is how I feel about the 70s. The seventies was a musical drought as far as I'm concerned. 50s, 60s, spectacular. 80s, nothing better. That missing decade in between, though: pure tripe.

My least favorite decade of the contemporary music era is the 50s. I can't stand all that doo-wop, Sha Na Na crap by music groups like The Platters or The Penguins or The Shirelles or whatever the crap they were calling themselves those days.

I think it stems back to my childhood. My mom did a really nice job exposing us to good music, but she was born in 1940, so her earliest childhood musical memories was the crap from the 50s.

I can't tell you how many times she made us listen to that song, "Beep Beep....beep, beep....his horn went beep beep beep...." It is a song about a "little Nash rambler" and two cars drag racing. I think to this day she cannot comprehend why we think that song is lame.

I also dislike the Frankie Valli vocal delivery that was common in that era....guys singing in this super high pitched squeal...."big girls....they don't CUH-RYE-EYE-EYE" or "SHEEE-EEEE-EEEE-EEEE-EEEE-EEEE-REEEEE-BAY-AY-BEE!" or the most ironic 50s song of all time....a bunch of high pitched whimps imporing everyone to "Walk like a man, talk like a man..." Yes, some of his hits crossed over into the early 60s, but the style was all 50s.

I think the 50s might be the worst decade of music. Almost all of it is quite fogettable, lacks staying power (with the exception of several really famous anthems...Rock Around the Clock, for example), and deserves to be buried in a sealed vault somewhere.

[SeattleUte]

Is Money for Nothing '80's? I think that may be the greatest foot tapping tune ever. Someone ought to do a top ten foot tapping tunes.

[RockyBalboa]

Is Money for Nothing '80's? I think that may be the greatest foot tapping tune ever. Someone ought to do a top ten foot tapping tunes.

Yes it is 80's.

[Donuthole]

My least favorite decade of the contemporary music era is the 50s. I can't stand all that doo-wop, Sha Na Na crap by music groups like The Platters or The Penguins or The Shirelles or whatever the crap they were calling themselves those days.

I think it stems back to my childhood. My mom did a really nice job exposing us to good music, but she was born in 1940, so her earliest childhood musical memories was the crap from the 50s.

I can't tell you how many times she made us listen to that song, "Beep Beep....beep, beep....his horn went beep beep beep...." It is a song about a "little Nash rambler" and two cars drag racing. I think to this day she cannot comprehend why we think that song is lame.

I also dislike the Frankie Valli vocal delivery that was common in that era....guys singing in this super high pitched squeal...."big girls....they don't CUH-RYE-EYE-EYE" or "SHEEE-EEEE-EEEE-EEEE-EEEE-EEEE-REEEEE-BAY-AY-BEE!" or the most ironic 50s song of all time....a bunch of high pitched whimps imporing everyone to "Walk like a man, talk like a man..." Yes, some of his hits crossed over into the early 60s, but the style was all 50s.

I think the 50s might be the worst decade of music. Almost all of it is quite fogettable, lacks staying power (with the exception of several really famous anthems...Rock Around the Clock, for example), and deserves to be buried in a sealed vault somewhere.

Such a spot-on summary of my feelings about 50's music I could not have written myself.

My fourth-grade teacher had a cassette tape of various 50's songs which he would allow his students to take home and copy. The waiting list was long, and when I finally got my turn to take it home, I was so disappointed with the content that I never even made a copy. There was no way that garbage was going to replace my Beach Boys tapes.

All in all, I find the lyrics of most popular 50's songs to be overly simplistic, trite, and devoid of effort and thought. Sure, there are songs like that from any decade, but they are often mocked, in retrospect, whereas the 50's hits are revered.

[MartyFunkhouser]

My least favorite decade of the contemporary music era is the 50s. I can't stand all that doo-wop, Sha Na Na crap by music groups like The Platters or The Penguins or The Shirelles or whatever the crap they were calling themselves those days.

I think it stems back to my childhood. My mom did a really nice job exposing us to good music, but she was born in 1940, so her earliest childhood musical memories was the crap from the 50s.

I can't tell you how many times she made us listen to that song, "Beep Beep....beep, beep....his horn went beep beep beep...." It is a song about a "little Nash rambler" and two cars drag racing. I think to this day she cannot comprehend why we think that song is lame.

I also dislike the Frankie Valli vocal delivery that was common in that era....guys singing in this super high pitched squeal...."big girls....they don't CUH-RYE-EYE-EYE" or "SHEEE-EEEE-EEEE-EEEE-EEEE-EEEE-REEEEE-BAY-AY-BEE!" or the most ironic 50s song of all time....a bunch of high pitched whimps imporing everyone to "Walk like a man, talk like a man..." Yes, some of his hits crossed over into the early 60s, but the style was all 50s.

I think the 50s might be the worst decade of music. Almost all of it is quite fogettable, lacks staying power (with the exception of several really famous anthems...Rock Around the Clock, for example), and deserves to be buried in a sealed vault somewhere.

I agree with you that pop music of the 50s is just awful. I would rather listen to awful 80s music over the awful 50s music you described. However, for me the 50s are a great musical decade because there was some fantastic jazz being played during that time period.

If you want to limit the discussion to pop music, I will certainly agree with you on the 50s.

[SeattleUte]

I don't like 50's pop music in general but Frank Sinatra isn't totally indefensible.

[SeattleUte]

All in all, I find the lyrics of most popular 50's songs to be overly simplistic, trite, and devoid of effort and thought. Sure, there are songs like that from any decade, but they are often mocked, in retrospect, whereas the 50's hits are revered.

LOL. I wouldn't exactly call the lyrics of any decade's popular music profound (yes, I'm talking about Dylan too).

[TripletDaddy]

I think the 50s gets a collective pass from music historians because it was the decade that launched rock and roll. Obviously, when you first fire up the lab, you are going to make a lot of mistakes.

If we were to go back in a time machine to the late 40s and be around for the advent of rock and roll, I am sure we all would have been thrilled, shocked, energized, blown away, etc by the newness of it all. So much credit should be given for the pioneer spirit of the era.

However, when I listen to stuff by Bill Haley, Buddy Holly, etc....it is clear to me that even it it's nascent stage, musicians were capable of putting out quality material. This really hurts the cause for the likes of Frankie Valli, et al.

Also, I am not exactly sure what era to which guys like Sinatra and Crosby would belong (some of them spanned the 40s, 50s, and 60s), but I am a full fledged fan of the Chairman of the Board. I enjoyed the crooners and can still enjoy a Sinatra Greatest Hits disc, no problem.

[Babs]

I think the 50s might be the worst decade of music. Almost all of it is quite fogettable, lacks staying power (with the exception of several really famous anthems...Rock Around the Clock, for example), and deserves to be buried in a sealed vault somewhere.

I agree with you that pop music of the 50s is just awful. I would rather listen to awful 80s music over the awful 50s music you described. However, for me the 50s are a great musical decade because there was some fantastic jazz being played during that time period.

If you want to limit the discussion to pop music, I will certainly agree with you on the 50s.

We have the late fifties and very early sixties to thank for the invention of bubblegum pop. The Everly Brothers, Brenda Lee, Lesley Gore...heck, even Alvin and the Chipmunks were on the charts. The era brought us the kind of shallow, sugary, mindless and meaningly pop that we continue to see take over our collective soundtrack for a few years every decade.

[Clark Addison]

This is just a trolling attempt to identify all the 35 to 45 year olds here, isn't it? Well, it worked.

The 80s has been getting a bad rap. When most people say they hate 80s music, they mean they hate Culture Club or Milli Vanilli or Flock of Seagulls. The 80s was great because it had a tremendous amount of variety. When you think of New Wave, don't think of Flock of Seagulls, but Talking Heads, XTC, Oingo Boingo, Devo, the Smiths or many others. But the 80s was far from all New Wave. Punk/Post-Punk was still going strong, with The Clash, The Dead Kennedys, The Rplacements, etc. You had pop groups that went from ballady to heavy metal, 10,000 Maniacs, REM, U2, The Pixies, X, Guns N Roses, Metallica. You had older groups still churning out quality stuff like Elvis Costello, Bruce Springsteen, and The Police. You have more than enough weird groups like Violent Femmes, Dead Milkmen, and They Might be Giants. Then, to top it all off, you have the start of the popularization of Hip Hop, Run DMC, Grandmaster Flash, Public Enemy, and N.W.A.

There was a lot of crap in the 80s, but you can find that everywhere. And maybe Jazz sucked, but I really don't know anything about Jazz other than what I heard on the Cosby Show.

[venkman]

The 80's ruled. We had kick-ass music and a kick-ass President.

[SteelBlue]

If you weren't alive and old enough to be interested in sex/drugs/rock n' roll during a certain decade then you should not have any credibility in dismissing the music of that decade. I think that we often like music as much for what is going on in our lives during the time that we hear it as we do for the quality of the music.