Was the 80's pretty much the worst decade in recorded time?

Point-Counterpoint:

The 60's
The Beatles
The Archies

The 70's
Aerosmith
Bay City Rollers and Disco

The 80's
Ambrosia
Wham

the 90's
Nirvana
Vanilla Ice

2000's
Wolfmother
Lady GaGa

 

As a gay guy who loves big sunglasses, short shorts, high socks, analog synthesizers and sequencers, 8bit video games, italo/space/post/cosmic disco and synth-pop, rollerskating, and triangle shirts, I'd have to say that the 80's were pretty much the best decade in recorded time. I was born in the middle of the decade (late June 1985, talking almost dead center lol) so of course my memories of what it was like are intensified through the lens of a child's curiosity, but the vast majority of the music I listen to was released in the early eighties (and the late seventies, really I think my ideal 'decade' would be 76 - 86) and music is primarily 'my life' so that it makes it very appealing to me in retrospect. I mean, what was the world before MIDI / after DAW? Nothing!!

 

Nope, we hit the 90's and then the00's. looking back the 80's were good musicwise.

 

Nope the 80s was THE PEAK OF WHAT WAS GOOD on this scumhole we are on!!!! (Things have been getting worse ever since)

 

tHE 80S SHOULD BE WIPED OFF THE MUSICAL CALENDAR ALL TOGETHER!!!

 

I feel sorry for the kids these days, no one buys an album anymore, it's all about downloading tunes by different people who are flavour of the week.
Kids today dont know what it's like to venture into a music store and hunt up and down the aisles deciding which album you are gonna spend your money on that weekend. Getting it home and playing it non stop.
I don't think kids have the patience to listen to a whole album these days, they dont sit there and try to get under the artists skin and wonder how this record came about and why.
I grew up in the 80's north west England near Manchester and in my teens most weekends would go into town and spend hours in music shops.
I can remember being 14 & True Faith by New Order was released, I thought it was the best thing I'd ever heard and spent the next year buying their back catalogue and learning all I could about the band.. Joy division etc. I did this kinda thing with many bands.

I apologise, I realise I've come across as a sad old fart but I wouldn't want to swap my experiences and music in the 80's for the kids experiences with todays music.
I realise also I sound just like my Dad when he picked up my cassette tape of Raw Like Sushi and said... 'What's this crap... you should listen to some of my Roy Orbison records' lol.

Having said all that, it's nice to go on youtube and flick on some Genesis prog rock from 1973 for example and read the comments from young people about how much they love this type of music.

There was so much great music made in the 80's and feel the bad rap it gets is totally unjustified.

 

i had just the opposite conversation with my mom, i would listen to pink floyd and she would say "why are you listening to them? they are older than i am"

my only reply was if that was the way things were nobody today would have ever heard of Beethoven.

 

Born in '79, I was a kid of the eighties. I do not remember much of that time, but one thing I prefer from the eighties rather than the nineties when I was a teenager is the music of the eighties.

 

The movies were great. I would say best decade for movies, worst decade for hair.

 

Yes and getting those movies ON VHS (IN SP MODE AND UN-DIGITALLY COMPROMISED) IS FABULOUS!!! (They sound/look AS BEST THEY CAN (Especially on a CRT set )

 

Here it was the opposite. I am from 1982 and I loved growing up in the eighties but as soon as I gained a little insight in music I became aware the 80's were disgusting. Of course I fully began to appreciate and value music after the age of 10 so in the 90's but I was pleasantly suprised with what the radio had to offer in that decade!
I guess after the age of 15 I learned pop music was just not for me and I became your average teenage metalhead, at the time heavily into 80's stuff before getting into the superb developments of the 90's in both rock and metal (and drum 'n bass and other digital stuff for that matter!). So I have a hard time understanding peeps who think the 80's was better musically than the 90's. For me it really was the worst decade in music.

Hahaa, definately! Let's just say for fashion in general. It was hilarious! I can agree about the movies too. A good decade, not sure the best though

 

Sure that decade gave us George Micheals and shitty ass hair, but it also gave us Faith No More, Anthrax, P.Gabriel's solo awesomeness, Prince, Paul Simon's Graceland album. It was a decade of some great festival concerts, Live Aid, Knebworth jams with Page and Plant. Waters doing the Wall at the Wall.

I'm not even gonna get into the Metal.

For every piece of shit that was produced in the 80's, there was some awesomeness going on somewhere else.

 

I agree the 80's were awesome for metal but on the other hand it had the glam and hair stuff too. So yes, it evens out And just that the majority of that decade is disgusting in my opinion does not mean everything was bad then. It just is the worst music decade for me.

 

Wow quite disturbing!!

The 80s rocked in almost every way!!

 

But other decades rocked harder and better hence why I come to this conclusion No worries dude, as you know it is all subjective in the end. It was not all bad but for me it has the least to offer musically and fashionwise certainly as well. The 70's and 90's had it's own dreadful things for sure haha, but so much great music came out. In the end it is not even about the year it was recorded but about the music itself right

 

Disco, the Carter years, etc, all make the 70's the worst decade of all time. Besides maybe the 50's. Not that there weren't bright points in music in the 70's, some of the best music came from then. I'm just saying that overall, they were MUCH worse than the 80's.

If you look beyond pop and what was topping the charts in the 80's, it was the best decade for music of all time. More creative than the 60's/70's combined. Creatively and artistically. Music from the 60's, what most people call creative from that decade, was mostly just simple rock, sometimes mixed with blues. It was creative and interesting compared to what came before, but today its....boring. But, its also a matter of opinion.... I like an interesting sound/presentation more than just interesting playing of an instrument. People may mock synthesizers but I think music became a lot more interesting with digital experimentation.

When I was a little kid, my parents listened to college rock, indie, new wave, avant garde kind of stuff. Much of it very obscure. With a lot of it, I haven't heard anything so interesting made before or since.

 

I was born in 1977 so I didn't have an adult experience of the 80's, but I love 80's music.

nunnies

 

i would say the 20s sucked way worse.

 

Without the dreadful 80's there wouldn't have been an awesome 90's decade