Best years in music
 

This is where my brain goes to, especially when confronted with crappy modern music. When were peak years in music? I've narrowed it down a bit to these two based on how many great albums were released year by year and personal preference mixed in, so you guys don't have to wonder anymore. So, drumroll please.

1994 is a great year, but I'm a grunge fan.

Can't disagree with the op at all, but if I had to dial it in even tighter... I'm going with the 80's

From pop to rock to soul, there were tons of legendary acts either in their prime or breaking onto the scene in every genre during that decade

The 80s are hit and miss for me. I love prince but not big into the legends of metallica or michael jackson. I like how the alternative thing was just starting in the late 80s, some of that is good. It might just be me but hardly anything grabbed me from that whole decade. Maybe I should've been born earlier...I'm a 90s kid :)

I would say end is 1989. The only good album I can find after 1989 is 1992-Whitesnake-Slip of the Tongue.


After that . Ick. grunge, rap, hip hop. Nothing. Never understood U2, INXS

And yes, 80s is hit and miss. Lot of one hit bands. Come on Eileen.

For all their faults, the baby boomer generation had great music. I mean, ****, can you imagine turning on the radio in, lets's say, 1972 and getting new CCR, Rolling Stones, Zep, Black Sabbath, and Alice Cooper Group tunes? Changing the channel and getting some kickass Motown stuff. Changing it again and getting some old school country.

90-91 had some great albums if you like hard rock.

ACDC - "Razor's Edge"
Metallica - Black Album
Alice in Chains - Facelift & Dirt
black sabbath - dehumanizer
Ozzy - No More Tears
Guns n Roses - Use Your Illusion

'68 and '73 were great, but pretty much all years from the '60s and '70s qualify IMO.

1983 was up there for me. Albums by:

Ozzy
Scorpions
Quiet Riot
Def Leppard
The Police
Bowie
Robert Plant

I think Quiet Riot Metal Health was the first tape I ever bought.

Grunge died in 1994.

1992 was a GREAT year. I remember watching the 1992 VMAs the same week my 8th grade year started :

The Black Crowes opened with Remedy, Chris Robinson in white feather boa, glitter black shirt and leather pants with pot leaves up and down the sides...

Lenny Kravitz did "Are You Gonna Go My Way" with John Paul ****ing Jones on bass.

Pearl Jam did "Animal" and then Neil Young walked out and did "Rocking In The Free World" with them.

U2 (with host Dana Carvey on a 2nd set of drums) did "Even Better Than The Real Thing"

Def Leppard did "Let's Get Rocked", iirc

Milton Berle and RuPaul almost got into a fistfight while introducing an award winner (my money was on Uncle Milty.)

Nirvana did "Lithium" and at the end Krist Novoselic knocked himself out by throwing his bass in the air and trying to catch it with his head, and Dave Grohl taunted Axl Rose from the stage.

Red Hot Chili Peppers, not to be outdone, get the entire P-Funk All Star crew onstage for "Give It Away".

Elton John did some maudlin thing.

Eric Clapton did "Tears In Heaven"

Then, Elton John joined Guns N Roses and a goddamn symphony orchestra for "November Rain."

that was ONE SHOW. On MTV.

In 1992.

You aren't looking very hard then.

Some bands you might like :

Rival Sons
Dirty Honey
Steepwater Band
Steel Panther
The Last Vegas
Blackberry Smoke
Gov't Mule
JJ Grey & Mofro

check 'em out.

I will have to. If it was not on KCFX or KYYS...I didnt hear it.

I grew up on both of those stations (I remember Max, Tanna, and Moffit on KYYS KY102.1), KY was more "hard rock" while 101.1 was always "Classic ROck" (didn't they INVENT the format?), then 98.9 came along and finally we could flip between those 3 stations and Z-Rock on AM, then 96.5 The Buzz came along, and you could actually get by on just AM/FM for about a minute...

I am sure tanna does not look like she did.

None of us do, brother.

I used to be in 32/32s, by the time of the Texans playoff game at Arrowhead I was up to 36/32s, now back down to 34/32s...

Private Dancer by Tina Turner
ZZ Top Eliminator
Metallica Kill Em All
Motley Crue Shout At The Devil
Stevie Ray Vaughn Texas Flood
teh first Violent Femmes
Pink Floyd Final Cut
Billy Joel Innocent Man
KISS Lick It Up
The self-titled Genesis with "That's All" on it is GREAT
Cindi Lauper She's So Unusual
Julian Lennon Valotte
Iron Maiden Piece of Mind
Billy Idol Rebel Yell
Huey Lewis Sports
Stevie Nicks The Wild Heart

are all great and from 1983 iirc.

It's still like that at my house. Approx 7000 vinyl records and approx 10000 CDs...

Rabble is right. there's plenty of great modern music, you just have to go to it now, it won't ever come to you. "Popular" music is a wasteland of garbage.

For me, it's 1980:

Black Sabbath - Heaven and Hell
Diamond Head - Lightning to the Nations
Judas Priest - British Steel
Motörhead - Ace of Spades
Ozzy Osbourne - Blizzard of Ozz

All 5 released in 1980. There are several more but those are my top 5.

People have always claimed that "music sucks", regardless of the era.

The great thing about the evolution of the music business is that it's easier than ever to find music that suits one's taste but it can take a little digging, unless you're willing to search out forums or threads like these that can uncover all kinds of gems.

Will always be today due to the catalog and inspirations artists have to draw from

There's definitely genre dips along the way but its rare that I purchase anything that's been released in years prior unless its super special to me

If we're going off nostalgia, then yeah, mid 80s metal and early 90s death metal for me

1980 was also a watershed year for me as well. I'd pretty much lost all interest in pop and rock music from around 1977 to early 1980 and instead, focused on Prog Rock, Jazz Fusion, Jazz guitarists like Wes Montgomery and George Benson and Steely Dan.

That all changed once I heard Heaven & Hell, Blizzard of Ozz, The Scorpions Animal Magnetism, Pat Traver's Smokin'Whisky & Drinking Cocaine and Van Halen's Women and Children First.

All of the sudden, all was right with the world.

The correct answer is the entirety of the 80's. Show me another decade that spawned so many styles and had so many different types all simultaneously popular at the same time.

He's dead on. There's more great music being made now then ever before but it doesn't come to you. I spend a lot of money at bandcamp (which is all independent or small label).

Yep. Music isn't the monolithic medium it used to be. There's literally something for everybody, every tiny little niche can be indulged by someone.

It's just that you have to go search according to your tastes because there's so much of it, it would never find it's way to mass distribution.

Animal Magnetism is a great album, for some reason it's one of the few Scorpions albums I don't own. I'm going to have to rectify that..

And Pat Travers is crazy good. I love that tune.

The 60s. The 70s.

I can't name an exact best year, but something from the "classic rock" era which is maybe late 60s to late 70s.

Pat Thrall kicks so much ass on the Smokin' Whisky guitar solo.

I was 14 years old at that the time and had heard every great guitarist, from jazz to blues to rock, but that guitar tone and solo just blew me away. It was so honest and melodic while having so much attitude that it really affected my playing style from that moment forward.

Van Halen's Fair Warning was the same. I'd always enjoyed Van Halen and Eddie's guitar riffs (I can't spell out r.i.f.f.a.g.e.) but it wasn't until I heard Dirty Movies, Sinner's Swing! and Hear About It Later that I really got into them because there was just so much anger and attitude in those songs and solos, something I didn't hear in 50's, 60's and 70's guitar driven music, whether it was pop, rock or jazz.

That year really changed my life.

Yeah, there was just something magical about those mid-career Scorpions albums that really spoke to me.

Love Drive, Animal Magnetism, Blackout and Love At First Sting were just an awesome mix of great production, killer guitar tones and songwriting. They just hit it out of the park during that era for me.

The opening riff of Snortin Whiskey is so freakin tasty. Stoner stuff is my main fun and I love those groovy bluesy riffs...

Blackout is my favorite Scorpions album, especially the title track and Dynamite.

I also have all 3 albums from the Uli Roth era which I love.

Women and Children First still gets SO MANY spins, I have the Chris Bellman reissue and the original West German pressing, and I can't decide which sounds better, so I spin them both. The original US pressing sounds inferior to both, thought about selling it, might give it away, give it away, give it away now...

Double Fantasy will always have a sentimental place in my heart.

Fleetwood Mac Live is an awesome live compilation that sounds like one show, even though it was recorded over a 5 year period. I grew up on that bad bitch.

Did Grateful Dead Go to Heaven come out that year? The cover was dreadful, but it had "Althea", "Feel Like A Stranger", and Alabama Getaway" on it, they were rocking. I remember watching old footage of them on SNL doing "Alabama Getaway" and "Casey Jones"...

AC/DC Back In Black...ubiquitous. My faves : "Shoot To Thrill" and "Have A Drink On Me" (both are very Bon-esque...)

Billy Joel Glass Houses is a personal fave, I wore that cassette OUT.

Talking Heads Remain In Light.

Zenyatta Mondatta by the Police got a ton of play.

Emotional Rescue has become one of my favorite Stones albums over the years. It's really ****ing good. Underrated, even. It gets bashed, but Some Girls and Tattoo You get heralded, but all 3 are literally cut from the same cloth, and Emotional Rescue is sandwiched between the other two. It's funky, dirty, bluesy, funny, and firmly toungue-in-cheek. It's a very "NYC at the dawn of the 80s via the Stones" kind of vibe, I suppose.

And as far as guitar tone goes, it's Michael Schenker for me. I love pretty much every UFO guitar solo he ever did.

2 albums neither one of us listed from 1983 but I guarantee we had them both :

Van Halen 1984
and
Thriller

Rock Bottom, baby.

Strangers In the Night.

Yeah, I'm into a little heavier music. I wasn't ever a big VH fan and I love early AC/DC but post-1980, I'm not fond. The Brian Johnson era just doesn't seem as raw and rough as the stuff they did with Bon.

"I'm drinkin' whiskey at the party tonight, and I'm looking for somebody to squeeze..." and then I go, "oh, THAT'S how you play bass in a 3 piece band with someone who goes off the rails on guitar..."

Ironically, my favorite solo of his is Only You Can Rock Me, which isn't one of my favorite songs of theirs.

And Strangers in the Night was a live album. Rock Bottom was originally released in 1974 on their debut album. Great song. GREAT album.

Jailbreak 1974 kicks all kinds of ass to this day.

If we're going 70's, Thin Lizzy's Jailbreak album is definitely one of my all-time favorites. I love that album from start to finish and Phil's voice still gives me chills.

I was a kid, so I listened to what my parents listened to until MTV brought Motley Crue into my life with "Looks That Kill" - I wasn't even in grade school yet. My cousin Ronnie came down to visit and he watched MTV, we all did, but I was into the Beatles, KISS, Jimi Hendrix, Bob Seger and Thriller.And when "Looks That Kill" came on, we were like a little mini Beavis & Butthead - "wow. This ROCKS. YES." I probably didn't say it out loud because I was very meek and KISS was really still popular amongst my cousins and the demographic at the time - Ronnie's stepbrother Tony had a KISS lunchbox that EVERYONE coveted - but I remember thinking, "wow, they're like KISS...BUT THEY ROCK HARDER AND THE MUSIC IS BETTER."

And then I'm over at my babysitter's, skipping down the sidewalk and Angie and the "older kids" (older than me) are rocking Shout At the Devil. I start singing along to "Looks That Kill" and Angie is like "you KNOW this song? Hey guys, this little kid knows this song! How do you know this song?"

I tell the truth : "I saw the video on MTV."

Their eyes widened in awe and respect, and I guess I was probably the coolest little kid they had ever interacted with at that point...

And the reason that you think that the Brian Johnson era just doesn't seem as raw and rough as the stuff they did with Bon is because it isn't as raw and rough as what they did with Bon. Powerage is the best AC/DC album ever and it's been that way since 1978 and it will never change. But I love AC/DC, and it was them along with KISS and Motley Crue that got me into heavy music, so albums like BIB, For Those About To Rock, Who Made Who, and Razor's Edge hold a special place for me, as they were popular when I was a kid. Who Made Who is really the album that "turned me on hard." I had a TDK D-90 cassette with Who Made Who on one side and Dirty Deeds (International Version) on the flip side, then I had Back In Black on another with Motley Crue Theatre of Pain on the B-side. And those albums, along with Welcome To My Nightmare by Alice Cooper, well, I kind of put Buddy Holly and the Beatles on the backburner and turned to the darkside.

Well, and Black Sabbath. We all love Black Sabbath.

Then Guns N Roses, The Black Crowes, and Nirvana came along, in real quick order for me.

I was lucky enough to be at the tail end of the "classic" rock era, I experienced hair metal and the 80s, and was just coming out of elementary school as the "alternative" Gen X era was really picking up steam, I remember watching the debut showing of Alice In Chains "Man In The Box" on MTV, probably Headbanger's Ball...

A whole lot between 1971-76

But I tend to side with 1973:

Dark Side of the Moon
Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
Quadrophenia
Lynyrd Skynryd's first album
Selling England by the Pound (Genesis)
Tales From Topographic Oceans (Yes)
Houses of the Holy
Innervisions (Stevie Wonder)
Band on the Run
Aladdin Sane (Bowie)
Sabbath Bloody Sabbath
Let's Get It On (Marvin Gaye)
Lark's Tongues in Aspic (King Crimson)
Brain Salad Surgery (ELP)
A Wizard, A True Star (Todd Rundgren)
Bruce Springsteen's first two albums

I've been looking at the release dates of some albums that i like and it's amazing how prolific some of these bands were. CCR released 6 albums in a two and a half year span for God's sake. Deep Purple released 10 albums between 68 and 75 - with three different lead singers. The Beatles had a million hits on a dozen albums all within just a few years, too.

I picked up the Australian pressings (I have a New Zealand reissue for High Voltage) and it's weird to hear those songs in their "proper context" for me - I grew up with '74 Jailbreak, and even though it's less than a half our long, it blew my mind. "Soul Stripper", and maybe the best "Baby Please Don't Go" since Van the Man...

Lynyrd Skynyrd's entire career is built on the albums recorded and released between 1973-1977.

What? No Goat's Head Soup???

I like the American releases of those early AC/DC albums. Those albums were better without some of those songs.

Edit: while on the subject, I think Angus and the guys screwed up by not hanging on to Mutt Lange. Fly on the Wall, Flick of the Switch, and Blow Up Your Video would have all been much better received with better production.

Big Thin Lizzy fan.

Huge Motörhead fan too.

And then there's Rainbow and the early Judas Priest stuff.

Crazy music coming out of the UK around 1975-1976.

Pretty much all of my favorite music is British from 1970 with Black Sabbath all the way to the mid-80's. I didn't really start appreciating American music until the late 80's / early 90's with bands like Jane's Addiction, Primus, and Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Eh, it's the Stones, but not one of their top efforts

Yep.

That's funny as shit because the very first Crue song I remember hearing was that one. Looks That Kill.

I always thought Thin Lizzy sucked because the only song they ever played by them on the radio was "The Boys Are Back in Town." It wasn't until I heard a bootleg of a tribute concert in honor of Phil Lynott that I discovered that they had a ton of great songs.

Rainbow is another extremely underappreciated band.

p.s. Primus Sucks!

That's pretty crazy, but a new album every year-18 months definitely wasn't unusual in the 60s/70s. Plus, a lot of these bands were basically touring non-stop. By the 90s, you were lucky to get something new every three years from the big names.

Maybe Dane can chime in, but I read a while back that the spread of FM radio and more pop/rock stations, plus the video explosion of the 80s made it so record companies could milk sales from an album a lot longer, so they didn't necessarily want a new product every year when they were still able to get decent sales from the last one.

Fair point, especially the 70's.

But the 80's just had it all - The Eagles, Metallica, Depeche Mode, Michael Jackson (in his absolute prime), Van Halen, New Edition, N.W.A., Blondie.....literally every ricochet tangent of subgenre you can think of. Love some classic rock/pop, but for my buck the 80's wins.

I thought so too.

Until I saw them live.

;)

I follow a lot of small bands today and they're going back to that model. Basically in order to tour non-stop, they have to have a steady flow of new product so they're releasing an album or EP every 18 months or so.

Of course, COVID destroyed several of them. :(

While there is some truth to that notion, by the 1980's, albums cost more than $1 million to record and produce, which was a hefty price tag, especially for a follow up album so labels tended to sit on their hot product for as long as possible before shelling out another million or more for a follow up album.

The majority of bands that got record deals and MTV play had a difficult time writing a suitable follow up album because in most cases, guys spent their entire lives writing their debut album but usually had only 12-18 months to write and record their follow up, which is why so many bands failed so quickly.

Also, the problems caused by Independent Promoters and radio were formidable. Indie Promoters were so powerful by the late 70's that they could actually control what was played on radio.

The most famous incident occurred upon Pink Floyd's The Wall release, in which none of the album's songs were played in Los Angeles and other big markets for at least 6 weeks after the album's release because the labels didn't want to pay Indie Promoters hundreds of thousands of dollars for something they felt was unnecessary.

But in the end, the Indie Promotors won and the labels caved.

Well done. ('67-'75 for me).

Funny thing though, I've got a nostalgia for 90s music now, a lot of it is fantastic. I had no interest in it at the time.

"Second wave" of Classic Rock - late 70s to '84 or so - also some great great music.

I'm not a huge Scorpions fan, but I saw them in the mid 90s and they put on a good show. The opening act was an Australian band called The Poor. This was the height of the grunge era and ticket sales must have been abysmal because I was able to get tickets for two dollars a piece on the day of the show. Two bucks!

2001 was a great one.

Opeth's Blackwater Park
Tool's Lateralus
Daft Punk's Discovery
Radiohead's Amnesiac
Porcupine Tree's Recordings
Jay Z, Nick Cave and Devin Townsend had solid outings as well.

Hell, the Lord of the Rings and Spirited Away's soundtracks deserve love, too.

Don't have a problem with the production on Flick or Video. The production on Fly on the Wall sounds like a hot flaming dumpster filled with people creating a new kind of AIDS.

I had Suck On This on cassette.

My favorite is still the Brown Album, though.

I agree; it was a bit selfish on my part to choose 94 over 91. It was based on the mid-90s production of those grunge albums being god-tier, especially In Utero ('93) and superunknown. And my favorite bands from that era are alice in chains and soundgarden; Jar of flies might not be the best alice in chains album but I'm partial to it.

As for grunge being dead in '94, I never understood that. Is that because it became mainstream, and therefore wasn't cool? I like the '95 albums tripod by aic...dark as hell...mellon collie by smashing pumpkins was bloated but had some great songs. Burden in my Hand was an excellent note to go out on for the grunge era in mid-96.

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I agree that it has the worst sound of all three, but all of them suffer in comparison to Back in Black and For Those about to Rock. "Live at Donington" featured a couple of tracks from the Blow Up Your Video album and they sound much much better despite only being released a couple of years later.


Another album doomed by bad production: Black Sabbath's "Born Again." You know Deep Purple's success with Perfect Strangers the following year had to kill Tony Iommi.

Ab.so.lutely.

I mean don't get me wrong, great arguments can be made for the 70's and 90's

But for the sheer variety of well represented genres, its gotta be the 80's for me

The production isn't great and honestly, I'm not super fond of the songwriting either, but Born Again is still Iommi and Gillian. Tough to say anything bad about those guys.

Pretty much.

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I have a show on CD called "Purple Sabbath" from that tour, when I get moved I'll rip it and up it here in this thread. I owe someone a CCR From Europe that I've already ripped.

1973 produced DSOTM, Houses of the Holy, Tres Hombres, Sabbath Bloody Sabbath and Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. Goddamn the 70's were loaded.

73 produced Allman Brothers Brothers and Sisters the first album after Duane's death.

Lynyrd Skynyrd (Pronounced 'Lĕh-'nérd 'Skin-'nérd)

Yes- Yessongs

Yes- Tales from Topographic Oceans

Doobies-The Captain and Me

Mid 80's to early/mid 90's was a great era.

Mid 60's to mid 70's also a great era.

At the turn of the millennium (good) music started to die...then about 2010 it really took a nose dive to the point of no return.

I refuse to listen to anything modern day. My playlists are mostly from the eras listed above.

Nobody wortha shit plays real instruments anymore. I mean there's a few out there left that do and who are authentic but there not much.

That's because there is absolutely no money in trying to become a "Rock Star".

All of the best musicians and composers today are working in Film & TV, whether as Composer/Producers, Ghost Composers, Hired Guns or all of the above. I know dozens of guys earning $300k a year and more that own homes and have families without ever having to leave their families to go on tour.

On the other hand, only the Legacy Acts and current superstars are the only people really earning money. All of those bands on Warped and Van's tours are paying out of pocket to perform on stage, with more than 95% of them supported by their parents.

It's just nearly impossible to earn a living writing songs and playing clubs with the hope of getting a song on the CW or a Netflix/Amazon/HBO series in order to drive traffic to iTunes and Amazon.

The good news is that last year, Fender Guitars was on the verge of bankruptcy but due to COVID, sold $700 million dollars in merchandise to have to their best financial year, ever! Ibanez, Gibson, Seymour Duncan and so many others in the MI business literally ran out of parts in order to keep up with the demand and many are still out of parts and electronics.

We can only hope this leads to a new generation of people that want to write and play their instruments live, slinging guitars, basses and drums onstage as opposed to a laptop and a turntable.

For me, it's probably 1976.

Eagles Hotel California
Boston's debut album
Kansas Leftoverture
Rush 2112
Aerosmith Rocks
AC/DC Dirty Deeds/High Voltage

Most of the bands I support are like this. They depend on merch sales to get them to their next gig. If a van breaks down or something, the tour is over. A lot of them only tour half the year and spend the other half working construction or other seasonal jobs to fund the next tour.

Making a comeback. It's absolutely true. My daughter is in her room practicing her guitar right now.

Raise her allowance, lol

I'll add:

Frampton Comes Alive

Just to piggy back off this, I used to scoff at how you could find good new music that's underground, but it's not even hard to find anymore if you look at youtube. Lots of amateurs make their own music, and prog rock has been taken to a new level by young musicians. It's like guitar music never stopped evolving since it was last popular, and it's exciting discovering it. (check out sarah longfield for a good rabbit hole)

Where's toxicity?? But yes 2001 really did have some good albums despite how much bad music was being made at the time.

I think you pretty much nailed it. They revolted against the big "arena sellout' bands therefore eliminating their own ability to grow a large fan base for long. I thought it was interesting seeing labels jump into that genre with both feet when it was obvious it had a limited fan limit before fans had to leave or look like hypocrites. Don't get me wrong, I love some of that music, but the whole model was a head scratcher to me.

Sarah Longfeld is awesome. I watch a lot of those YT channels. I especially like Stevie T because so many people hate his schtick but holy **** is he great at guitar.

Heroin had a lot to do with it's demise.