This week’s list is more of a ranking then a list. I want to write about the best decades of rock music, but, saying that rock music started in the ‘50’s, I only have seven choices to pick from. One of those decades we are in the middle of, so it’s pretty much impossible to compare it to anything yet. Which leaves just six decades of music to pick from and since this is a top 5; I’m only really leaving out one decade. So, I’m going to call this the Top 5 Decades Of Rock Music, but really, here is my ranking of the decades of rock music…
5) 2000’s
This is really a pick’um between the 80’s and the 00’s. Neither decade was very impressive or creative when it came to rock. There was a lot of bad pop, bad music from groups that were once great, bad imitations of great music and bad attempts at new sounds. The 80’s did have U2 and Def Leppard at their respective heights and a couple great Van Halen albums, but the music that defined the decade, stuff like new wave, just sucked. The 00’s had the first Strokes album, interesting stuff by Radiohead, upstart indie bands like Say Anything and Streetlight Manifesto, a great Chemical Romance album and Jurassic 5 at their height. All that gives the 00’s the edge over the 80’s.
4) 1950’s
The history of rock music reminds me a lot of the course your favorite long running sitcom takes. In this analogy the 50’s is the first season where you are introduced to the new show and all its characters. It’s not the creative peak of the show but it will always be special because it’s the first time the show was made public. The 50’s introduced rock music to the world and laid the roots for everything that has come since. Elvis, Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, Bill Haley, The Everly Brothers, The Platters. These are all names that everybody knows, names that inspired thousands, names that set the foundation of everything that would come. But still, the music is far from complex or any type of creative peak. It was a great first season, but better stories were yet to be told.
3) 1960’s
The 60’s is your typical 2nd season. Most of the stories are similar, but you’re building on what was established in the first season. Of course, included in the season are a couple of episodes that will become classics, episodes that will come to define what the show is, that nobody will forget. Future seasons will reach creative peaks because of what was done with these episodes. The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Doors, Otis Redding, The Kinks are these episodes. The 60’s as a whole is not the best decade of rock, but it contains a few of the greatest musicians of any decade. These three groups put 60’s ahead of 50’s, and light years ahead of the 00’s and 80’s, but their greatness wasn’t universal enough for me to rank it much higher. Rock was still growing as an art but it now had its masters to lead the way.
2)1990’s
Every good show seems to reach a creative plateau, the shows seem t0 become formulaic and stale and then all of a sudden they find some new wrinkle and bust out with a great season late in their run. That’s what the 90’s is, that late season long after the creative peak that becomes another classic. After the crap made in the 80’s, the 90’s brought us Radiohead, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Green Day, Blues Traveler, The Black Crows, Cake, Rage Against The Machine, grunge, third wave ska, second wave punk, the best of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, the Beastie Boys and Metalica. That’s not even mentioning the explosion of hip hop and electronica, two newer genres that gained both creative and popular traction. I’m a little biased because this was the music of my young adult years, but the 90’s was a musical renaissance, something we could use another of sometime soon. 1)1970’s
At about the third or fourth season every great TV show seems to reach its creative peak. The characters have been developed and introduced, the story that needs to be told has been established, the writers are free to explore their art and brilliance happens. That’s the 70’s, that first truly great season when all previous work has led to creative genius. Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, The Who, early Chicago, Boston, early Van Halen, The Ramones, The Sex Pistols, Fleetwood Mac, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Stevie Wonder, early Talking Heads, Blondie, Van Morrison. I could go on and on. These musicians explored their art like no other decade and created some of the greatest music ever recorded. They created new forms and new genres within the rock main frame in more abundance then any other decade. As far as I’m concerned, the 70’s are the pinnacle of rock music
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