What was the main genre of every decade?

Music
1

I don’t mean what you like the most or what sold the most, I mean what was the main genre.

2

60s

  • rock n’ roll
  • folk
  • motown
0 voters
3

70s

  • prog
  • punk
  • disco
0 voters
4

80s

  • metal
  • pop with a synthesizer
  • sad music from England
0 voters
5

90s

  • rap
  • brit pop
  • grunge
  • dance
0 voters
6

00s

  • indie
  • rap
  • dubstep
0 voters
7

10s

  • pop
  • rap again
0 voters
8

60s: avant-garde electronica
70s: glam pop made for enticing minors
80s: anti-luddite pop symphonies
90s: quiet storm
00s: British rap about how you’re going to make it
10s: Oxbridge festival indie
20s: confused class war country

2 Likes
9

60s: pop
70s: pop
80s: pop
90s: pop
00s: pop
10s: pop
20s: pop

image

6 Likes
10

60s: Neil Young
70s: Neil Young
80s: Neil Young
90s: Neil Young
00s: Neil Young
10s: Neil Young
20s: Neil Young

(Admittedly 80s and 00s to 20s NY is pretty ropey)

2 Likes
11

Mine:

50s Frank Sinatra
60s Rock and Roll
70s Rock
80s Sad British stuff in a van or a taxi
90s Britpop and Triphop
00s Indie
10s Pop
20s Magdalena Bay

6 Likes
12

00s Nu-Metal
10s Nu-Nu-Metal
20s Nu-Metal

3 Likes
13

I changed my vote a few times for the 90s, because I think it depends a little on UK vs US and elsewhere. But overall I reckon that grunge and the alt rock movement that followed, with major labels taking chances on previously unmarketable bands, probably take it. While if you look at the UK exclusively, dance was the main cultural force. (And obviously the peak of rap music can feel a bit hard done by missing out.)

1 Like
14

I reckon that globally dance smashes it in the 90s - maybe the first truly global music?

15

You forgot about Graceland :smile:

1 Like
16

00s: Crabcore

4 Likes
17

In what sense? What type of dance music? The US was pretty allergic to dance music in the 90s, outside of creative hubs in Detroit, Chicago, NY and Miami. Neither Latin America nor the Caribbean had taken to electronic forms of dance music, beyond a few rare examples. House started to really take off in South Africa and spread to some other parts. Was Asia big on dance music in the 90s outside Japan and like white European kids in Goa?

Feels like a mostly European phenomenon to me, whereas nowadays you really have a truly global electronic dance scene.

1 Like
18

80s: The Cure

1 Like
19

Is it harder to answer these once you get to the 90s because i lived through them or because everything got more diffuse at that point?

20

The irony of it all is that the legacy of the 80s was considered rubbish in the early 90s, all in the name of “good taste.” But the synthpop sound has come back with a vengeance, and this revival has been going on for twenty-five years, which is unprecedented. And it’s not stopping anytime soon. It’s everywhere, so much so that no one is paying attention.

One might wonder who was right and who was wrong about the legacy of the 80s all this time.

1 Like