I think that would better represent what the majority of people were listening to & buying.
Aren't people just the worst?
Just because it hit #1 on the charts or copped a lot of radio/MTV airtime doesn't mean it's enduring and indicative of it's decade.
Otherwise you might as well just lock in Gangnam Style for the 2010's, Crazy Frog for 2000's, Achy Breaky Heart for the 90's, Turn Back Time for the 80's, Shaddap ya Face for the 70's...etc...
Wow....interesting thread CJ...I'll give it my best
1960's: Turn Up Your Radio - The Masters Apprentices (I remember being always asking my mum to turn up the radio)
The Real Thing - Russell Morris (was just so different and it was sung by an Australian)
1970's: The Last Resort - The Eagles (this song matched my growing interest in looking after the environment..."you call someplace paradise, kiss it good bye)
Free Bird - Lynyrd Skynyrd (I remember seeing this on what might have been the first ever episode of "Night Moves"...it just blew me away and I went out and bought the cassette the very next day [One More From The Road])
1980's: Don't Change - INXS (Rocked my way around Europe in '83 listening to Shabooh Shoobah and knew the entire album word for word...Don't Change was (and still is) my all time favourite INXS track
The Unforgettable Fire - U2 (my all time favourite U2 track...I still get goosebumps whenever I hear it)
1990's: One Country - Midnight Oil (I remember liking this track but when I saw it performed live...it was completely ******* brilliant)
Lost For Words - Pink Floyd (Classic Floyd lyrics - So I open my door to my enemies, And I ask could we wipe the slate clean, But they tell me to please go fark myself, You know you just can't win)
2000's: The Game - Disturbed ( I was looking for new music as the **** that was being played on the radio was doing my head in...a mate burnt me a CD with a few Disturbed tracks...I went out and bought their debut album and this was the standout track for me)
Bye Bye Beautiful - Nightwish (Another band that I found through the CD my mate burnt for me...the song is about the split between the band and their original vocalist)
2010's: Walk Like A Giant - Neil Young & Crazy Horse (Neil is still walking like the giant he is...still making great music and still **** hot live)
The OP talked about listing two songs which represented the decade to you, the individual.
It doesn't ask to name what was most popular or what changed the face of music.
My choices were based on how those songs impacted on me during that particular period of time.
Surely that's why there is so much diversity in the replies....many of the artists mentioned by other posters had no impact on me at all as I didn't listen to them.
Wow....interesting thread CJ...I'll give it my best
1960's: Turn Up Your Radio - The Masters Apprentices (I remember being always asking my mum to turn up the radio)
The Real Thing - Russell Morris (was just so different and it was sung by an Australian)
1970's: The Last Resort - The Eagles (this song matched my growing interest in looking after the environment..."you call someplace paradise, kiss it good bye)
Free Bird - Lynyrd Skynyrd (I remember seeing this on what might have been the first ever episode of "Night Moves"...it just blew me away and I went out and bought the cassette the very next day [One More From The Road])
1980's: Don't Change - INXS (Rocked my way around Europe in '83 listening to Shabooh Shoobah and knew the entire album word for word...Don't Change was (and still is) my all time favourite INXS track
The Unforgettable Fire - U2 (my all time favourite U2 track...I still get goosebumps whenever I hear it)
1990's: One Country - Midnight Oil (I remember liking this track but when I saw it performed live...it was completely ******* brilliant)
Lost For Words - Pink Floyd (Classic Floyd lyrics - So I open my door to my enemies, And I ask could we wipe the slate clean, But they tell me to please go fark myself, You know you just can't win)
2000's: The Game - Disturbed ( I was looking for new music as the **** that was being played on the radio was doing my head in...a mate burnt me a CD with a few Disturbed tracks...I went out and bought their debut album and this was the standout track for me)
Bye Bye Beautiful - Nightwish (Another band that I found through the CD my mate burnt for me...the song is about the split between the band and their original vocalist)
2010's: Walk Like A Giant - Neil Young & Crazy Horse (Neil is still walking like the giant he is...still making great music and still **** hot live)
The OP talked about listing two songs which represented the decade to you, the individual.
It doesn't ask to name what was most popular or what changed the face of music.
My choices were based on how those songs impacted on me during that particular period of time.
Surely that's why there is so much diversity in the replies....many of the artists mentioned by other posters had no impact on me at all as I didn't listen to them.
OK, may surprise a few of you but I may have been a touch facetious with the Boney M thing....
Surely you have to - at the very least - look at genres, though. What crossed over, what people were listening to, dancing to, etc. Because chances are, when most people are thinking about memories of that era, the soundtrack was something pretty popular.
Boney M were maybe at the tail end of disco, and most would go something more cerebral like... ABBA, Diana Ross or the Bee Gees as a better representation of it, but disco would definitely be a part of that soundtrack for the 70s.
Just as Beatles/brit pop-rock in the 60s is a bit of a no-brainer; or big/epic/hair rock for the 80s; etc etc.
OK, may surprise a few of you but I may have been a touch facetious with the Boney M thing....
Surely you have to - at the very least - look at genres, though. What crossed over, what people were listening to, dancing to, etc. Because chances are, when most people are thinking about memories of that era, the soundtrack was something pretty popular.
Boney M were maybe at the tail end of disco, and most would go something more cerebral like... ABBA, Diana Ross or the Bee Gees as a better representation of it, but disco would definitely be a part of that soundtrack for the 70s.
Just as Beatles/brit pop-rock in the 60s is a bit of a no-brainer; or big/epic/hair rock for the 80s; etc etc.
Good point, well made.
I think a better criticism of Twist and Shout is that if you didn't know your history, it could have conceivably come from the fifties.
OK, may surprise a few of you but I may have been a touch facetious with the Boney M thing....
Surely you have to - at the very least - look at genres, though. What crossed over, what people were listening to, dancing to, etc. Because chances are, when most people are thinking about memories of that era, the soundtrack was something pretty popular.
Boney M were maybe at the tail end of disco, and most would go something more cerebral like... ABBA, Diana Ross or the Bee Gees as a better representation of it, but disco would definitely be a part of that soundtrack for the 70s.
Just as Beatles/brit pop-rock in the 60s is a bit of a no-brainer; or big/epic/hair rock for the 80s; etc etc.
Yeah probably but this is subjective. If you went to raves all the time in the 00's or hung out in the R&B room in night clubs or went to metal gigs a lot then you're going to have a different perception of what songs are the most nostalgic for people.
Personally I might have heard a heap of songs on the radio but if I didn't actually buy it then it wasn't that important to me. Why should my memory of a particular decade be driven by teenage girls preferences at the time?
Maybe next time around we can give everyone, say, 4 genre's per decade and pick 1 song per genre? That would at least force people to acknowledge that there was a lot more than Hair Metal going on in the 80's (though of course there's Christian Hair Metal, Glam Hair Metal, Heavy Hair Metal, Thrash Hair Metal etc).
OK, may surprise a few of you but I may have been a touch facetious with the Boney M thing....
Surely you have to - at the very least - look at genres, though. What crossed over, what people were listening to, dancing to, etc. Because chances are, when most people are thinking about memories of that era, the soundtrack was something pretty popular.
Boney M were maybe at the tail end of disco, and most would go something more cerebral like... ABBA, Diana Ross or the Bee Gees as a better representation of it, but disco would definitely be a part of that soundtrack for the 70s.
Just as Beatles/brit pop-rock in the 60s is a bit of a no-brainer; or big/epic/hair rock for the 80s; etc etc.
Many people would go for a Beatles song for the 1960's, but l would have Satisfaction by the Stones ahead of anything my the mop tops as being more representative of that decade. Similarly many people would go for an ABBA song somewhere, but l think they are guilty of crimes against music and are ■■■■■■ awful, not to mention boring and repetitive. l just don't like them, can't stand them, but l guess you get that impression by now.
OK, may surprise a few of you but I may have been a touch facetious with the Boney M thing....
Surely you have to - at the very least - look at genres, though. What crossed over, what people were listening to, dancing to, etc. Because chances are, when most people are thinking about memories of that era, the soundtrack was something pretty popular.
Boney M were maybe at the tail end of disco, and most would go something more cerebral like... ABBA, Diana Ross or the Bee Gees as a better representation of it, but disco would definitely be a part of that soundtrack for the 70s.
Just as Beatles/brit pop-rock in the 60s is a bit of a no-brainer; or big/epic/hair rock for the 80s; etc etc.
Many people would go for a Beatles song for the 1960's, but l would have Satisfaction by the Stones ahead of anything my the mop tops as being more representative of that decade. Similarly many people would go for an ABBA song somewhere, but l think they are guilty of crimes against music and are ■■■■■■ awful, not to mention boring and repetitive. l just don't like them, can't stand them, but l guess you get that impression by now.
Yeah, they don't stand up next to Peter Gabriel, soooooo....
ABBA are, IMHO, one of the best pop bands that there's been. Still an unbelievably distinctive sound today, despite it being (at heart) a pretty basic 4 piece, with pretty basic pop songs, *key change*, & one or two little recording tricks. And the tracks are hard to hate on too much, far too cute, far too catchy. Hard not to sing along to, if driving. Can't be many artists that highly played who the majority of people don't want to die in a burning, flaming, painful heap.