Bands that perfectly represent decades

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

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