Bands that perfectly represent decades

The header isn't quite what I'm getting at here, but I couldn't think of a better way of putting it. Which bands perfectly represent a decade because that they were only active in that decade? For example, the Beatles were the perfect 60s band because their career spanned the 60s. Whereas the Stones, the Who and the Kinks, although they were all great 60s bands, were also active in each subsequent decade. So I'm looking for bands from the 70s, 80s, 90s and 00s whose career spanned those decades and weren't active outside of them.

where's geir when you need him?

Steely Dan for the 70s

so yeah it's obviously not punk or disco (so 70s) but fusion/yacht and that sound was pretty massive in the 70s right

But Steely Dan are still going. This isn't so much about the "sound of the decade" as about bands who were born, lived and died in a single decade.

aah, now I get it

Emerson, Lake & Palmer (1970-1979)?

90s - Pavement, the Boo Radleys

They released an album in 1992 but that's pretty close.
xpost

The Smiths?

All the bands I've found seem littered with dodgy reunions

If you discount those, then Bangles fit nicely with the 80s

Ha, & Starsailor 2000s http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starsailor_(band)

TLC for the 90s

Yeah the Smiths are a perfect fit for the 80s.

TLC released an album after Left Eye's death in the 00s.

Ah yeah just reading about 3D now

You're probably also looking for artists who released multiple albums throughout that decade as opposed to a single one, right?

Hadn't thought of it from that angle but yeah, they need to have been pretty much active throughout their decade.

makes sense, otherwise Modern Lovers could be 70s candidates... Television too, but I guess they're back together. Very tricky stuff. Smiths is great for the 80s.

any special reason for listing this btw?

boredom tbh

Big Star?

Hüsker Dü

Louis Armstrong's Hot Five (1920s)

Minutemen -- sadly.

Badfinger -- also sadly

maybe they wrapped things up a bit early, but Electrelane for the '00s

Felt

http://lh4.ggpht.com/_FndWVWa36Hg/TU6hFEnFu7I/AAAAAAAACcQ/0fCEc-Kvc2k/s450/FeltBubblegumPerfume.jpg

not exactly a perfect representation of the 80s though.

if not by fey VU tributism, how does one best represent the assassination of anwar sadat, mount st helens, chernobyl, soviet union vs afghanistan, lebanon war etc?
sure as shit ain't duran duran

it has always annoyed me that the first Go Kart Mozart album was released in 1999 rather than 2000 so we missed out on having
Felt -80s
Denim -90s
GKM -00s
especially as I think I read that Me and a Monkey on the Moon was released On él Records rather than Creation specifically because the former were able to get it out before the end of 1989

notorious b.i.g. for the '90s, sadly.

one direction, sadly

i mean it's sad they haven't been around longer

90s: The Smashing Pumpkins

Pumpkins are still active..

Bedhead for the 90s.

Ride ? shoegaze/britpop : a big part of the 90s (in the UK at least) !

1970s: The Meters
1980s: Wham!
1990s: 2 Unlimited
2000s: Sugababes (I guess they technically existed until the 2010s, but since all the original members had left by 2009, I'd say they were firmly a 00s act)

feel like the 'no reunions' thing is a useless caveat. The Eagles formed in 1971 and broke up after releasing an album in 1979, and were arguably the biggest band of the '70s, doesn't make them any less associate with that decade just because they started touring again in the '90s.

Soul Coughing?

blind lemon jefferson can have the 1920s, left to die in the back of a car stuck in a blizzard on december 19th 1929

yeah, the "no reunion" criterion seems moot to me. except when it's a proper reunion with new album, new "creative" group activities, not just touring for the big bucks.

Nirvana - 90s ?

Pumpkins are still active..

Um, Billy Corgan using the Smashing Pumpkins name is still active, but let's be honest.

The Books - 00s
They did all of their work from 2000 and disbanded in 2010. Their sound although not popular musically for me they capture the decade like no other band.

LCD Soundsystem - 00s
Just like The Books, they did release their final album in 2010 but disbanded shortly afterwards so
I'm counting them in. Their sound was also very descriptive of the decade.

Other bands from the 00s that were formed and disbanded in the 00s: The Unicorns, The Avalanches, Fridge, Dntel,

yeah, i think Pumpkins represent the 90s more than Nirvana because they were around for the whole decade and disbanded at the end of 2000 (the 2000s didn't start until 9/11/01). each of their albums is a signpost of where the culture was at the time. Gish was a musical outlier to grunge (psychedelic prog rock not exactly 90s) but they were still of a piece at least in attitude with all those bands. they rode the alt rock wave into Siamese Dream, smash hit before the wave crested/Cobain's suicide, then got darker with Mellon Collie right before Marilyn Manson became a sensation, had some major hits with the experimental/futurist "1979" and "Eye," then came Adore, which was heavily informed by electronica/dance music of the time despite being essentially a folk record, then they tried to compete with the nu-metal bands with MACHINA, with production that sounded like Limp Bizkit. To the end, they were challenging (perhaps to a fault) and difficult, over-ambitious, idealist, deeply cynical but just as sincere. so they carried the spirit of the alt rock explosion with them until they broke up. can't think of another band that captured every musical era of the 90s like the pumpkins did.

00s = LCD Soundsystem

'50s - Buddy Holly & the Crickets

i know one

i'll charade it

*rocks to song by band from decade*

Limp Bizkit?

Spin Doctors?

Dave Matthews Band? Black Eyed Peas?

I can't really think of one for the 80s cuz imo they would have to straddle both new wave synthpop and rap in some way (to say nothing of what was going on w guitar rock at the time such as the Smiths), and I can't think of a single act that did that

Frankie Goes To Hollywood?

I seem to remember them grappling with rap for a few seconds on their album.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyk4-wS3rv4

the explosion of genres in the 70s and 80s seem to defy this approach imo. there just weren't omnivorous/omnipresent figures like the Beatles for those decades

I can't really think of one for the 80s cuz imo they would have to straddle both new wave synthpop and rap in some way (to say nothing of what was going on w guitar rock at the time such as the Smiths), and I can't think of a single act that did that

― Οὖτις, viernes 22 de agosto de 2014 20:54 (30 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five?

Two records only, both in the 80's. Sampled New Wave and rapped on top of it.

that's true but seems kinda wrong to call a band that was over by 1983 one that typified the decade

Well they got back together in 1988 and then disbanded again.

The Eagles formed in 1971 and broke up after releasing an album in 1979, and were arguably the biggest band of the '70s, doesn't make them any less associate with that decade just because they started touring again in the '90s.

this.

when you think of the 70s it has to be a band of 'rock' excess in all its clichéd form.

and the eagles truly rep that groove.

Zep more representative stylistically and sonically imo, AND they were huge AND they were rock n roll excess in its most cliched form, they practically wrote the book

Zep also got the polyglot nature of the 70s music scene better - they could draw on folk, metal, funk, disco, reggae, even punk to some extent

wasn't all they were drawing on

thought about zep, but they released debut in 69, and final album in 82 ..

Spazz, your points re Pumpkins as the quintessential 90s act are all great and otm. Square as I am, I felt like pointing out that the band, strictly speaking, is non-eligible. You still make a hell of an argument.

80s - Thompson Twins

I can't really think of one for the 80s cuz imo they would have to straddle both new wave synthpop and rap in some way (to say nothing of what was going on w guitar rock at the time such as the Smiths), and I can't think of a single act that did that

C'mon man, I already named them upthread!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsyHQgiem8c

but they released debut in 69, and final album in 82

Actually Zep I and Zep II both came out in 69, but Coda from 1982 consisted of previously recorded material from before Bonham died.

lcd soundsystem for the 2000s: nostalgic and anxious about being nostalgic.

I can't really think of one for the 80s cuz imo they would have to straddle both new wave synthpop and rap in some way (to say nothing of what was going on w guitar rock at the time such as the Smiths), and I can't think of a single act that did that

― Οὖτις, viernes 22 de agosto de 2014 20:54 (30 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Mantronix?

80s: Zapp, Culture Club, Big Black

lcd soundsystem for the 2000s: nostalgic and anxious about being nostalgic.

― Treeship

That's not what the 00's is about! It's more about dancing and being self-concious.

White Stripes would have been perfect for 2000s, had their debut not come out in 1999.

Got one for 2000s:
Jet

As it currently stands:
The Fiery Furnaces

Lil Wayne maybe. He was the first artist I noticed who catapulted himself to top tier status using the internet. Also his mixtapes from the mid aughts have a kind of exhausting, gratuitous quality that I associate with American culture during Bush's second term.

rip lil wayne 2000-2009 such a talented 9 year old whyyyyyyyyyyyyy

00s: 2 Many DJs, Glass Candy, Fischerspooner (not sure if these two are still active, they seem like a good fit anyway)

re-posting from some other thread I probably shouldn't have revived:

I was thinking of this yesterday, although not so much in terms of favorite as much as in terms of artists' whose work during a given decade best approaches encapsulating that decade. Prompted by listening to a bunch of Prince stuff, of course. His run of 80s albums contains so much - both in terms of musical styles and genres covered or touched upon as much as the overall subject matter and aesthetics - and his output reflect the times so well. It has the panicky hedonism, the apocalyptic eschatology (both religious and sexual), the 60s/baby boomer hangover, the sense that computers/tech are the future, flirtations with Reaganism. And musically so much of the decade's trends are present, regardless of whether or not he was setting or following them: post-disco R&B, new wave, 60s throwback jangle pop, Bob Seger-style guitar anthems, rap. If you go through these records they give you a better picture of what 80s pop culture was about, from the dawn of the decade to the end, than almost any other artist I can think of.

Then working back I was figuring Zep for the 70s and (duh) the Beatles for the 60s, although going the other direction I have a harder time - feel like from the 90s on either the number of artist's who sustained a career height through the entire decade become rarer (and they were pretty rare to begin with), or the pop landscape fractured too much for anyone to really cover it all.

I mean you could even (to some extent) extrapolate 80s hair metal from Prince - the androgyny + guitar pyrotechnics and stupid come-ons

although Prince was active outside the 80s so I guess he doesn't quite meet the thread premise re: activity

also I can't accept the Pumpkins for the 90s because the 90s were VERY much about rap imo and Corgan is like the whitest of lily-white non-rap dudes possible

feel like to represent the 80s you'd have to have "light and jaunty" sounding records early on but "heavy and bloated" records by the decade's end.

maybe that's rock-centric, idk

Prince def meets that criteria!

For the 90's, I'd say Pavement might be the best example for it.

60s: The Beatles
70s: Led Zeppelin
80s: Prince
90s: Nirvana
00s: Animal Collective

i don't think prince is a band?

ok, Madonna then

tell that to the Time

xp

Madonna is the only real contender for the 80s imo. I have zero interest in her catalog but her transformative zeitgeistiness is undeniable.

Teena Maria

you can't pick an artist you have 0 interest in! you can't subtract yourself from the question

why not? I haven't ever really enjoyed listening to Madonna but I am familiar enough with her work (still have copies of the first three albums, for some reason) and a clear enough memory of her impact over the course of the decade to understand how well she embodied the decade. I guess she's a bit musically less adventurous than other contenders like Prince or Zep or the Beatles - and that's to her detriment - but she was pretty on top of mainstream pop trends, and she still covers a lot of ground.

I guess she has no real connection to any of the rock of the decade, that's a hindrance.

they might be referring to prince and the revolution, but i don't know. i wouldn't choose prince to rperesent the 80s

feel like prince representing the 80s would be saying the 80s was a sex addict's dream sound. the guy made some cool stuff, but his mind didn't coincide with most 80s music? 60s or 70s would be more of a sexual liberty thing

porn first became widely available in the 80s thx to VHS so no

choosing a single band/musician/artist to represent decades is a fool's game

as if porn was the peak of 80s pop culture

I just meant that in comparison with the 60s/70s the 80s had its own kind of "sexual liberation"

if you have an issue with the basic premise that's all well and good (albeit a different complaint)

porn first became widely available in the 80s thx to VHS so no

― Οὖτις

lol maybe where you're from x-post

exactly. you can't win. it's useless

to my mind there was a very deep strain of puritanism vs. sexual hedonism that ran all through the 80s - AIDS crisis, Ed Meese's anti-porn crusade, John Holmes and the Wonderland murders, the Dorothy Stratten murder, the PMRC, the teen-sex comedy genre, I could go on and on

xp

and Prince (and Madonna!) were right in the middle of that stuff, sometimes literally

was grunge the first pop phenomenon that was sex-negative

probably. it was unusual on a lot of levels.

if prince and madonna were the sexual hedonism half, who was the puritanism half? or are they puritan in some way i'm missing

like who were pop music puritans? idk... Stryper? Obviously hedonism has more popular appeal. otoh we don't have to take our clothes off to have a good time, now do we.

outside of music it's pretty obvious who the puritans were

prince's storybook transcendence is kind of puritan on some level imo

i don't think that's how Outic is using puritanism though?

the funny thing about Prince is he can kind of be argued to embody the 80s puritan/hedonism conflict itself, as opposed to just the sexual hedonist side of it. He always had stuff like "Temptation" in his ouevre, refs to God/Xtianity, that kind of thing.

xp

yeah I'm talking old school American religious capital P puritan - renouncing the sins of the flesh for the glory of spiritual communion

obviously Prince *really* went there later in his career

yeah, puritanism in music is rare. i don't think it should be looked at puritanism in music, though. more like the absence of sexual connotations/innuendo, which prince is the polar opposite of.

goth had a dark view on sex and some of them were asexual, but they had opinions on that so you find references to it in their music, so it's definitely some level of hedonism, but not quite prince-level of moaning sounds

goth always seemed closely tied to the S&M scene ime, or at least a lot of 80s goths I knew were into the S&M scene and vice versa. Which is not puritan really, if anything it inverts trad religious punishment tropes into sources of pleasure.

puritans probably didn't make a lot of music in the 80's

One thing I did and do appreciate about the Smiths was Morrissey's puritan put-on - claiming to be asexual while always singing about sex

xp

puritans probably didn't make a lot of music in the 80's

didn't CCM really take off in the 80s? I know it def had its roots in hairy 70s hippie Xtians but like didn't Amy Grant start in the 80s

wait so all you have to do is basically mention christianity to be a puritan?

is that all Amy Grant did? (I wouldn't know tbh - let's ask Joan Crawford Loves Chachi)

i hung out with a bunch of goths in the usa for a short time and a lot identified with being asexual, and the s&m part become more popular as the years went by (after the 80s).

music is just too nuanced and time/city/culture-specific

puritanism usually manifests as an overly judgmental attitude, imo, i don't really buy into your symbolism or narrative tbh x-post

just in terms of Prince? yeah it's a bit of a stretch, but I do think there's this sort of wrestling-with-temptation undercurrent in his 80s work, even tho most of the time his inner horndog wins out

The Books - 00s
They did all of their work from 2000 and disbanded in 2010. Their sound although not popular musically for me they capture the decade like no other band.

LCD Soundsystem - 00s
Just like The Books, they did release their final album in 2010 but disbanded shortly afterwards so
I'm counting them in. Their sound was also very descriptive of the decade.

Other bands from the 00s that were formed and disbanded in the 00s: The Unicorns, The Avalanches, Fridge, Dntel,

― Moka

Was going to agree with this until I noticed it's my own post. Palms in my face.

LCD soundsystem still looks like a good choice for the 00's but it seems del reunite next year so I guess they get eliminated.

del = they'll