It pretty much won't be...I'd like to forget it altogether anyway...

Yeah, that would be terrible, huh?

Everything that has been AUTO-TUNEd to death will sound incredibly dated, just as over the top 80s style production sounds now.

Wow. The 80's pretty much rip this decade every which way as far as creativity goes. But the slate was a lot more wide open then as well.

I had my iPod on shuffle in the car the other day and a song from Moby's "Play" came on. I said to me wife, "Man, this is 10 years old already." We both started talking about how little things have progressed in the electronic category. You have stuff like Postal Service and other indie bands doing smaller scale electronic rock, but it doesn't seem all that radical to me. Maybe I'm just an old fart and it all has a "been there, done that" feel. I do recognize a few acts, like Beta Band, who made quite interesting music. I'm not suggesting this decade sucked because I LOVE a great deal of music from the past 10 years.

i bet people were saying the same thing about the electric guitar back in the 1950's and 1960's. the trend since the invention of the magnetic pickup is that music is going more and more electronic. and except for the huge orchestra's of the 1700's and 1800's the trend has always been to make music more personal and easier for a person with limited money to create

there was some good stuff this decade that I like but I think the 1990's with Grunge rock was the last bit of originality in music. I like The Fame Monster, but the first thing I thought when i listened to it was that it sounds like 1980's Madonna.

Yup those were terrible times compared to now. Here are couple of more shitty artists from the 80's that were popular.

Beastie Boys, The Replacements, Sonic Youth, NWA, Talking Heads, Smiths, Janes Addiction, Maiden, The Jesus n Mary Chain, Run DMC, PIL, Metallica, Madonna, Van Halen, Public Enemy, GnR, The Cure, ACDC etc....YMMV


As for this question:
iPod Gen.
iTunes - meaning singles not albums are/were important.
The decline of major record companies.

How about radio? Are they relevant anymore? It seems that all pop station are owned by the same company (to me at least).

I think this decade will be more remembered as the death of wide-spread common musical experiences than for any one type of music. Individual acts and songs reach a much smaller audiences today than in the past. No one will be as big as the “classic” acts of yore. That is the major change IMO.

Yeah, I think that will be the legacy of the Aughts. That, and the ever-widening gap between what are the most critically praised artists and the music that is the most commercially popular. In the Seventies and Eighties, many of the biggest selling albums were often some of the most critically praised as well. This past decade, the chasm between what was hugely popular and what has been critically lavished with accolades is bigger than ever. Just look at the just-announced Grammy nominations : Lady Gaga, Taylor Swift, Black Eye Peas? These are not going to be remembered as the premier artists of their era, are they?

I think Taylor Swift has the potential to be as she is very young and country is insainly popular.

Yes, she is very young, but she is also derided both in the worlds of Country and Pop as being too lightweight and having far too thin a voice. Amongst Country artists she's viewed as an outsider, more a product of pop than a true, accomplished country artist. She seems to be a very nice girl (as the POTUS himself has pointed out), but I just don't see her as more than a passing pop fancy. Of the big nominees this year, only Beyonce seems to be a major talent with decades of staying power -- and I wasn't all that crazy about her album either.

Many things are looked upon with negativy in its current state then venerated in retrospect.
This decade, as all others, had good and bad music.
1) We've seen a shift in recent years to genres being more ambiguous. Rock, pop, and hip hop have meshed with artist such as Lil Wayne, Fall Out Boy, and Rihanna (love them or hate them).
2)Indie rock became popular rock.
3) We've seen a revival in the semi-techno, heavy synth, nod to 80s bands like Depeche Mode, Duran Duran, and Tears for Fears with bands like The Killers, The Bravery, Interpol, and She Wants Revenge.
4) Piano rock and soft rock proliferated as well with Coldplay, Keane, the Fray, and Death Cab for Cutie et al.
5) Love it or not, malcore, rap/rock was huge (Linkin Park, Korn, etc although this was more early in the decade)
6) Many legendary bands put together good music like Red Hot Chilli Peppers and Depeche Mode.
7) Alternative hip hop saw popularity with less ganster rap and more introspective music. Its been around for a while but artists such as Common, Kanye West, Talib Kweli, Mos Def, and Lupe Fiasco popularized the genre even more. "Nerdy" rappers became acceptable.
8) Gangster rap gave way to party rap.

This decade was not as bad as everyone says. I think next decade we will see even more enthused artists and more intertwining of genres. The Rockband nation will want to pick up real instruments (which I have done). The ease of promotion with Youtube, Facebook, Myspace etc will encourage people to produce and promote. Ebay and Craigslist makes forming a garage band with a limited budget possible. I also expect supergroups (ala Them Crooked Vultures and the Raconteurs) to be on the rise. And Post alrternative/post rock/post metal should see a rise as well.

To be fair London Calling came out in 1979. The 80s did suck mostly, you should of picked combat rock as the example 80's clash album which would've demonstrated that. Still it was a better decade musically than the 00's.

The Postal Service, Daft Punk's Discovery. Most of eveything else was blah.

1) London Calling came out in the US in January 1980. Decker lives in Nevada.
2) It's "should HAVE picked"

still it was written, recorded in 1979, I only thought of sandinista and combat rock as their "80s" albums

BEP have 1-3 good songs per album

Lady Gaga will probably be around for a while unless success goes to her head and she starts using drugs. but i doubt since you have to be somewhat of an over-achiever to get into NYU

Taylor Swift has an interesting voice

Thank you very much. You are correct. Rolling Stone magazine famously and somewhat controversially picked London Calling as the greatest album of the 80's in a cover story twenty years ago.

probably because it first came out in the UK on December 14 1979

This is the decade the internet officially took over - with broadband and wireless becoming widely available and affordable systems capable of streaming music and playing mp3s while multitasking were released. Music videos died, music companies struggled, indie/internet radio got off the ground, and everybody started going their own way. Also - annoying, insanely boring indie rock, emo, and auto-tune.

I think everybody in the long run will have an individual take on it, as that seems to be the theme of these last few years. The journey from bubblegum pop to rap/rock to pure rap to emo and back to bubblegum pop in the popular radio scene has basically been a rehash of the 80s... and 90s... it's been a pretty standard decade.

While the rock radio scene seemed to show a little promise in the early-mid '00s (I enjoyed the Killers, The White Stripes, Killswitch Engage, and Muse getting radio play) it sort of gave way to ultra generic emo rock -- Framing Hanley and Breaking Benjamin come to mind.

As far as my own musical tastes, it's been a pretty average decade - not fantastic but not terrible. I've got to enjoy my last hurrah of late high school/college music and need to evolve past it a little (I've been done with school for a few years now). The music I've really enjoyed - Tool (Lateralus moreso than 10,000 Days), Streetlight Manifesto, As I Lay Dying, Darkest Hour, Rx Bandits (mostly Mandala), Less Than Jake, Deftones, M.I.A., etc; is decidedly different than what most folk on here seem to listen to (and is admittingly a tad less "mature").

What about gated drums? Those haven't stayed in style past the 80's. Not every electronic trend will stick around, and I hope Auto-Tune is one that people consider to be dated and not a lasting thing.

This is so true....and let's not forget that looks are probably playing a part in it as well...if she looked like Susan Boyle, does anyone really think she'd be the same teen/tween sensation she is now?

The real bottom line is that this was a decade without a universal identity, at least in the world of Rock music. I look at people's list of the "Best Albums of the Decade" and I have to laugh. I haven't even heard of half these artists and I subscribe to three music magazines. Not that the music isn't good, but there no longer seems to be a communal aspect to rock and popular music. Remember how everyone was so shocked about Michael Jackson's death? Part of that was because he was from an era where music was far more universal; everyone either had his album or at least knew it really well. Those days seem to be gone.

When I say "50's Music?" to you, you say "Elvis. Buddy Holly. Chuck Berry"
60s? -- Beatles, Stones, Dylan, The Who
70s? -- Led Zep, Pink Floyd, Eagles, Bowie, Fleetwood Mac, Elton John
80s? -- Michael Jackson, Police, Prince, Madonna, Early U2, REM
90s? -- Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Smashing Pumpkins, Beck, Green Day

What about this decade? Coldplay? Radiohead? I don't know. Nothing really springs to mind as being decade-defining music. And I don't think that's just a lack of perspective; it's really a change in the Rock music scene.

You can easily cherry-pick albums from any decade, including the 00s, that will stand the test of time. The 80s pop charts were (of course) just as chock-a-block full of grade A shit as any other decade. There was also a bunch of great music in the 80s, just like the 00s.

Yeah? Give me five nearly universally-praised, highly popular, award-winning albums with multiple hit singles that will be still recognized as iconic classics and frequently listened to in twenty years. Here, I'll even help you out with one:


So give me another four.

Yeah, but having your vocals sound you're talking into an electric fan sounds awesome!

This is going to be bigger than Les Paul.