1980s vs. 1990s - Which decade had the better music?

Which decade had the better music?

  • Total voters
    130
The 80's were great! British anarchy punk, Nu-wave, Hair Metal, and the rise of gangsta-rap. Michael Jackson was a mega-star. Madonna's Like a Virgin and Material girl. I could never get into early metal like Mega-death and Slayer... apart from a couple great songs thought their styles were repetitive and corny.
90's had Pantera and Hatebreed. Grunge... Nirvana, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam.
Rap Had Dr Dre, Snoop, Biggie, and Pac. Wu-Tang had the greatest album ever Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers), followed by OutKast Southernplayalisticadillacmuzic.Two of the greatest concerts Monsters of Rock, Moscow 91 & Woodstock 99.
 
90's

Metal got better. Rap got better. EDM got WAY better. Those are my main genres, so yeah, 90's for me, though 80's were of course no slouch either.
 
This album is fucking perfect. So I vote for the 90s.

7j2AES9.jpeg


I wonder how high on drugs Staley was when he wrote this masterpiece.

 
Darkavius said:
90's EDM was amazing. The kings of EDM of course being Daft Punk.
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Underworld, Prodigy, Chemical brothers, fatboyslim, fingalick'n records, freestylers, leftfield, massive attack, dj food, infected mushroom, shpongle, tuyoshi suzuki ..... I'm missing a tonne of others. Such a great party decade.
 
GergreG said:
Underworld, Prodigy, Chemical brothers, fatboyslim, fingalick'n records, freestylers, leftfield, massive attack, dj food, infected mushroom, shpongle, tuyoshi suzuki ..... I'm missing a tonne of others. Such a great party decade.
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I know America gets a lot of love for the 90's and deservedly so, but whatever was happening in Europe (especially the UK) was on another level. Oasis, The Cranberries, Daft Punk, Chemical Brothers, Radiohead, Spice Girls, Blur, etc. Also, I know many won't know or care but 90's K-Pop and J-Pop were great. J-Pop was better in the 80's imo but K-Pop was so good in the 90's.
 
80s by a decent margin. Popular bands in the 70s rode the momentum into the 80s with extensive tours and/or new music (ACDC, Rush, Aerosmith, Pink Floyd, ZZ Top, Tom Petty, Clapton, Rolling Stones, Stevie Ray Vaughan).

Rock bands that blew up mainstream wise where very good (Dire Straits, Billy Idol, Van Halen, The Police, Def Leppard, Guns n Roses, U2, Prince).

Metal music started a huge upward swing in the 80s (Metallica, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Megadeth, Anthrax).

Not a huge pop fan but the pop type music was good (Duran Duran, Whitney Houston, Tina Turner, David Bowie, Journey, Michael Jackson, The Cars).
 
I like both so it is hard to choose which decade had the best music. 80s radio music wasn't that good I thought growing up. The New Wave music as some called it, which didn't receive much radio DJ rotation time, was my favorite. It is kind of funny to me in that at the time that music wasn't popular, but today I hear it played all the time, whether on commercials, grocery store, etc.
 
I would say 1985-95 is the answer.
A good blend of metal, grunge, “alternative music” and industrial/electronic.

Rap, too, if you’re into it.
 
560ti said:
80s by a decent margin. Popular bands in the 70s rode the momentum into the 80s with extensive tours and/or new music (ACDC, Rush, Aerosmith, Pink Floyd, ZZ Top, Tom Petty, Clapton, Rolling Stones, Stevie Ray Vaughan).

Rock bands that blew up mainstream wise where very good (Dire Straits, Billy Idol, Van Halen, The Police, Def Leppard, Guns n Roses, U2, Prince).

Metal music started a huge upward swing in the 80s (Metallica, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Megadeth, Anthrax).

Not a huge pop fan but the pop type music was good (Duran Duran, Whitney Houston, Tina Turner, David Bowie, Journey, Michael Jackson, The Cars).
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Basically this and I would add:

Punk (Dead Kennedys, Minor Threat, Husker Du, Adolescents, Social Distortion etc)

Bands that led to the 90s popular grunge era (Sonic Youth, Pixies, Dinosaur Jr etc)

Rap (Public Enemy, Eric B & Rakim, Beastie Boys, NWA, Run DMC etc)

The number of artists that belong in one of those categories but haven't been listed is ridiculous: Bruce Springsteen, Madonna, Talking Heads, George Michael/Wham!, Tears for Fears, Billy Joel, Fleetwood Mac etc.

The 90s was very good but the 80s laid the foundation for much of it and was more varied and interesting.
 
The biggest problem with 90's music imo is that hip hop/rap started great but ended where, looking back at it, you could slowly see the downfall and quality of rap/hip-hop. You had good artists like Busta Rhymes, Eminem and Jay Z, but the 90's also introduced No Limit Records and Cash Money Records. No Limit was pretty much trash all the way around except for Mystikal and for a brief time Snoop. Cash Money was better since they had Lil Wayne, Juvenile and Mannie Fresh but you could tell the quality had decreased greatly especially in the lyrics.
 
For me personally, the splitting of fine hairs between both outstanding decades of music, is done by examining the watered down flavor of 80's MTV pop music, a segment of which was outstanding musically overall, however, the bottom rung of 80's "hits" tended to rely on the music video productions aspect moreso than the musical quality aspect.

The point at which pop saturation peaked, more or less around the time of Kurt Cobain's death, a martyrdom so to speak, triggered an intense shift from pop muzik moving our generation into a vibrant underground movement that peaked in virtually every genre right up until the Lars Ulrich and Napster fiasco. Every facet of music has taken a downward spiral ever since, with the odd anomaly present every so often.
 
SKYNET said:
The point at which pop saturation peaked, more or less around the time of Kurt Cobain's death, a martyrdom so to speak, triggered an intense shift from pop muzik moving our generation into a vibrant underground movement that peaked in virtually every genre right up until the Lars Ulrich and Napster fiasco. Every facet of music has taken a downward spiral ever since, with the odd anomaly present every so often.
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I know it's off topic but the whole Napster fiasco was the fault of the music industry. People think stuff is expensive now try buying a CD in the mid 90's and having to pay anywhere from $12 to $25 for 1 CD back when minimum wage was like $5.15 per hour. Then if the CD sucked there was no real way to recoup that lost money. Skynet is correct in that music has taken a downward spiral ever since but I never want to go back to paying those prices again for music.
 
70s and 90s were the best for music
So I guess it skips a decade?
 
Darkavius said:
I know it's off topic but the whole Napster fiasco was the fault of the music industry. People think stuff is expensive now try buying a CD in the mid 90's and having to pay anywhere from $12 to $25 for 1 CD back when minimum wage was like $5.15 per hour. Then if the CD sucked there was no real way to recoup that lost money. Skynet is correct in that music has taken a downward spiral ever since but I never want to go back to paying those prices again for music.
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Napster killed people's perception of audio fidelity. Sure you paid more for a pressed cd, but at least it wasn't some compressed shit sounding mp3 music.
 
80s tried to hard to be futuristic. That music didn't age well.
 
Darkavius said:
People say this quite a bit and I don't think people realize the type of hip hop and R&B the 80's had. The 80's had Kool and The Gang, Earth, Wind and Fire, Anita Baker, Whitney Houston, Sade, Luther Vandross, Eric B and Rakim, Public Enemy and Big Daddy Kane among others. 90's R&B is good but the 80's arguably has 3 GOAT's on the list above (Anita Baker, Whitney Houston and Rakim). In fact, I don't think there should be debate about Whitney imo.
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When it comes to hip hop, there's absolutely no contest. You can't be serious in thinking 80s rap is anywhere close to 90s.

With R&B it's closer, but I still give 90s the edge. Whitney is amazing but she's both an 80s and 90s act and her 90s material is arguably better. Anita Baker is good, but nothing compared to what Janet Jackson and Mariah Carey produced in the 90s. R. Kelly, Teddy Riley/Blackstreet, and Babyface were massive in the 90s. And when you add groups like Boyz II Men, Jodeci, and Dru Hill, it's over.
 
I voted 80s for this poll but I think the 70s was the greatest.
 
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