Your favourite era of music (that you've actually lived through).

[Casual Shinji]

It's pretty basic, I guess: What was the best musical era that you've experienced in your lifetime?

For me it was the Britpop era of the 90's. Bands like Blur, Oasis, Pulp and Supergrass made my high school years a bit more rose-colored.
It was also the last spasm of good music that emitted from MTV before it became the cesspool that it is today.

So, what musical era do you remeber foundly?

 

[lukemdizzle]

don't have one really. Ive never really listened to music from after the 80s

 

[Gildan Bladeborn]

Europe's "Power Metal Revival", which started in the mid 90s and is technically still going on right now. I'd like to list my actual favorite musical era, but as it happened about a hundred years before I was born it doesn't really fit the constraints of this thread.

the only time I lived trough was 2000 - 2010, and that is the blackest page in the music book

That is both completely true and utterly false - the banality of modern pop does make me long for a return to the shitty boy-bands of the 90s just so I could hate what's popular slightly less, but some of the best damn music I've ever heard came out this year. Come to think of it, all the bands I've written about in my Guide to Good Music [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/326.226783-Gildans-Guide-to-Good-Music-Red-Circuit-Homeland] were active during that time period, and most of them formed within the last 10 years; they are very much products of the modern era, and also awesome.

The perception of the 2000 - 2010 period as a howling musical wasteland only rings true if you've never heard of all those great modern bands who perform music that does not suck - hence the general impression that contemporary music is bloody awful, as most people haven't. They're definitely there though, so writing off the entire decade as a loss is a mistake - one simply needs to dig a bit deeper than the surface layer strata of shitty pop.

 

[sheogoraththemad]

the only time I lived trough was 2000 - 2010, and that is the blackest page in the music book

 

[Casual Shinji]

The perception of the 2000 - 2010 period as a howling musical wasteland only rings true if you've never heard of all those great modern bands who perform music that does not suck - hence the general impression that contemporary music is bloody awful, as most people haven't. They're definitely there though, so writing off the entire decade as a loss is a mistake - one simply needs to dig a bit deeper than the surface layer strata of shitty pop.

There is still good modern music, but the problem is that you really need to look for it.

 

[JaredXE]

80's pop and rock.

 

[the Dept of Science]

Well, being 19, I've got a choice between the 90s or the 00s. The 90s had lots of good stuff, but being <10 at the time, the only stuff I got exposed to really was Spice Girls, Boyzone, Backstreet Boys etc.

I don't know what everyone has against the 00s.

Here is a list of people, from pretty much every major contemporary genre (metal, rap, indie, electronica), who have had massive critical acclaim and a decent amount of commercial success.

Sigur Ros (and Jonsi)
Spoon
The National
OutKast (and Big Boi)
Animal Collective (and Panda Bear)
TV on the Radio
Radiohead
The Hold Steady
Wilco
Interpol
Modest Mouse
The xx
Joanna Newsom
Flaming Lips
Mastodon
Boris
Sunn O)))
Los Campesinos!
The Roots
Baroness
Super Furry Animals
Amadou and Mariam
Dizzee Rascal
Battles
Flying Lotus
Janelle Monae
Low
Hercules and Love Affair
New Pornographers
Avalanches
Fucked Up
Arcade Fire
Franz Ferdinand
Anthony and the Johnsons
Godspeed You! Black Emperor
The Decemberists
The Streets
Madvillain
High on Fire
Tom Waits
Fuck Buttons
White Stripes
Sufjan Stevens
Burial
The Shins
LCD Soundsystem
Kanye West
Sage Francis
Aesop Rock
Caribou
Bon Iver
Iron and Wine
(I could go on but I think you get the idea)

All of them have put out albums that I would consider great, easily comparable to the best records of any other decade.
In fact, I think its been one of the most musically diverse decades we have had so far, with everything from Sunn O)))'s droning doom metal to the Hold Steady's hyper lyrical hard rock to classically influenced post-rock band's like Sigur Ros and beautifully intimate folk like Iron and Wine.
Furthermore, we have seen the underground breaking into the mainstream in a way that we haven't seen since Nirvana in the 90s. Heavy metal has become one of the best selling genres of music, indie has become massively popular as well, with bands like Vampire Weekend and the xx becoming massive commercial successes.

 

[SalamanderJoe]

90s techno pop like Steps, or the 10s era of whatever the hell we have today. Well considering my favourite bands are HIM and MUSE I'm saying 10s. It was all boy bands ' n'cheesy pop in the 90s...

Girlfriend: There was some rock in the 90s! I think...

 

[kintaris]

The 00s. You've not helped by specifying that I have to have lived through it and as a 22 year old that leaves me the 90s - which I hated - and the 00s and, I guess, the 10s.

The 80s was probably best for chart music. My love for the 00s is mostly for a long list of artists that never actually hit the charts, at least not in England.

 

[the Dept of Science]

Europe's "Power Metal Revival", which started in the mid 90s and is technically still going on right now. I'd like to list my actual favorite musical era, but as it happened about a hundred years before I was born it doesn't really fit the constraints of this thread.

the only time I lived trough was 2000 - 2010, and that is the blackest page in the music book

That is both completely true and utterly false - the banality of modern pop does make me long for a return to the shitty boy-bands of the 90s just so I could hate what's popular slightly less, but some of the best damn music I've ever heard came out this year. Come to think of it, all the bands I've written about in my Guide to Good Music [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/326.226783-Gildans-Guide-to-Good-Music-Red-Circuit-Homeland] were active during that time period, and most of them formed within the last 10 years; they are very much products of the modern era, and also awesome.

The perception of the 2000 - 2010 period as a howling musical wasteland only rings true if you've never heard of all those great modern bands who perform music that does not suck - hence the general impression that contemporary music is bloody awful, as most people haven't. They're definitely there though, so writing off the entire decade as a loss is a mistake - one simply needs to dig a bit deeper than the surface layer strata of shitty pop.

I do get the feeling that if the people that complain about 00s music were around in the 70s or 80s, they would probably be complaining about the hair metal, the disco, the pop rap, the smooth jazz and all the other horrible musical trends that were around then. People tend to forget the bad stuff (and jeeze is there a lot of bad stuff) that each previous decade carried and have the good current music obscured by any shit that happens to be popular on YouTube.

 

[Falseprophet]

Your favourite era is always the one that was happening when you were 15 - 25 years old. You will always have fond memories of that period in music.

Grunge and 90s alternative basically took off right around when I started high school, and so did techno and goth-industrial, and even though in hindsight that era was no more important than any other time in music, I still have fond memories of the music I liked from that era.

The thing with 00s music is, all the centralized channels have basically been torn down. You can hear about music from all over the world and in small, local scenes thanks to the internet. If you don't like, say, North American metal, there's a whole European scene you might like. You don't have to go to record stores or the radio to get your music anymore.

So the only music that still makes it in the mainstream is the blandest, most accessible pop there is. There are a few exceptions (and some of that pop is really well made), but there are so many genres and sounds now that most acts will never have enough mass appeal to be Billboard Top 40, so they don't even bother trying to play that (expensive) game. I've found a lot of great 00s music that will never in a million years be heard on the radio or win Grammies.

 

[kelsyk]

I only really lived through the 90s and 00s, and none of the music of those era holds special appeal for me.

 

[Phoenix09215]

Has to be the 90's... well the half which I lived through. That was back when songs other than rap/RnB and pop could get in the charts. And when you were laughed at for using Auto tune!

 

[varulfic]

Uh, none I guess. Well, the 90's were pretty awesome in retrospect, but while I was there I listened to complete shit the way little kids do, and I didn't get in to any of the good stuff until year later when I was older and had aquired taste.

 

[[guys_its_ok]]

I say the nineties pop power ballad stuff that my mum used to always have playing in the car when I was little. It's not exactly the sort of stuff I listen to now, but i'm saying era as in, the new music that gets played on the radio, where my choice is basically that, or that year in the oo's where rap was really popular for some reason, or the DUM, DSH, DUM DSH, autotune/sing-talk stuff we got now.

[small]wow that last sentence is probably the worst thing I've ever written, grammatically speaking.[/small]

[small] also, 100th Post!!!!!! yay![/small]

 

[Gildan Bladeborn]

Your favourite era is always the one that was happening when you were 15 - 25 years old. You will always have fond memories of that period in music.

I don't think that is quite as universal as you think it is - my favorite musical era is the Romantic Period of classical composition that took place in the late 1800s and early 20th century. Granted, the bulk of contemporary music that I do enjoy was produced during that period of my life (1998-2008), but with very limited exceptions I didn't actually listen to it (or know it existed at all really) until the past two years of my life rolled around. In point of fact most of the music I heard during that era that was also produced in that era was music I loathed with every fiber of my being (the stuff I love from that time period tending to be far far more obscure offerings that aren't widely known that I only learned about through hindsight and Pandora).

You can't ascribe everything to nostalgia.