Bands that perfectly represent decades

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