what I like about that period

all these artists who achieved #1 mark in 1985, you had a great mixture of everything

yeah, we had young artists, but then we had artists in their 30s, and 40s

james brown reached #1 r&b status in 1985 w/the song "Living In America".....and he was in his 50s when he did that...

Stevie Wonder was in his 30s by 1984

Tina Turner was in her mid 40s

Phil Collins was in his mid 30s....

Michael Jackson was 29 when he released BAD in 87

allot of the songs teenagers were listening to, our parents was listening to them also....

let someone in their 30s try and put a song out today, the industry would laugh at them, that's the problem now, everything is way too youth oriented, no balance

Mainstream music and cinema are in clear decadence

at least mainstream cinema gives us a couple of truly interesting/good films every year, but mainstream music? wow

aardvark15 said:

you realize that your fav artists are from the era of the "old grumpy geezers", right?

Madonna's songs are as bad as todays music; they sound similar actually

vainandy said:

funkaholic1972 said:

Peeps, the stuff you say about today's music is the same stuff our parents said about "our" beloved Eighties music! I believe today's kids in 20 years time will listen with the same love to their own "soundtrack of youth" (these bloody 2010 tracks, which I hate like most of you here), just like generations before us. Basically all you are saying is that you are growing old!

No, our grandparents, not parents but grandparents, said our music was too fast. We say the younger generation's music is too slow. We're still young. It's the younger generation that has the closest taste to senior citizens.

How is the 'younger' generations's music too slow? Dubstep is popular with the young generation. Is that slow?

Azz said:

vainandy said:

No, our grandparents, not parents but grandparents, said our music was too fast. We say the younger generation's music is too slow. We're still young. It's the younger generation that has the closest taste to senior citizens.

How is the 'younger' generations's music too slow? Dubstep is popular with the young generation. Is that slow?

Never heard of them. Is that a pop group or an R&B group? All I know is, the R&B stations and nightclubs that play current music are all as slow as Lawrence Welk. If it's pop, I could care less. All I'm concerned with is R&B and putting the rhythm back in the "R" in R&B.

vainandy said:

All I'm concerned with is R&B and putting the rhythm back in the "R" in R&B.

What about the "blues" part?

MickyDolenz said:

vainandy said:

All I'm concerned with is R&B and putting the rhythm back in the "R" in R&B.

What about the "blues" part?

I could care less. I'd rather have the "B" stand for Butt Shakin'.

vainandy said:

MickyDolenz said:

What about the "blues" part?

I could care less. I'd rather have the "B" stand for Butt Shakin'.

But there were blues songs that people danced to. That's why it was named "rhythm & blues" (blues songs with rhythm), and also to get rid of the "race music" title which was used before it. It's forgotten that a lot of earlier music was really "dance" music. Jazz and swing was dance music that started dance crazes such as the Charleston and Jitterbug. Some jazz acts started the cool jazz/bop style to get away from the dancing and was designed more for listening. Jump blues and "boogie woogie" were blues styles that folks danced to.

[Edited 10/25/12 9:06am]

MickyDolenz said:

we got George Michael, Phil Collins, Madonna, Tears for fears, Stevie Wonder, Simple Minds, duran duran and Whitney Houston...all classics that people today still know

Probably because those songs are played all the time on oldies station, in stores, TV, commercials, Grand Theft Auto, etc. How many people today know #1's from 1928, 1942, or 1953? Those songs are not played everywhere, and so they're not as well known.

Thank you.

For example, let's go 25 years before 1985.

These are the No. 1 hits from 1960. I can't say the 85ers can beat this slate.

vainandy said:

funkaholic1972 said:

Peeps, the stuff you say about today's music is the same stuff our parents said about "our" beloved Eighties music! I believe today's kids in 20 years time will listen with the same love to their own "soundtrack of youth" (these bloody 2010 tracks, which I hate like most of you here), just like generations before us. Basically all you are saying is that you are growing old!

No, our grandparents, not parents but grandparents, said our music was too fast. We say the younger generation's music is too slow. We're still young. It's the younger generation that has the closest taste to senior citizens.

preach

many people have forgotten how extreme the 80's were

00's mainstream music is not only lame, it's also TAMED

vainandy said:

funkaholic1972 said:

Peeps, the stuff you say about today's music is the same stuff our parents said about "our" beloved Eighties music! I believe today's kids in 20 years time will listen with the same love to their own "soundtrack of youth" (these bloody 2010 tracks, which I hate like most of you here), just like generations before us. Basically all you are saying is that you are growing old!

No, our grandparents, not parents but grandparents, said our music was too fast. We say the younger generation's music is too slow. We're still young. It's the younger generation that has the closest taste to senior citizens.

Now true. You'll never find a kid who likes top 40 liking anything that your grandparents liked. You may think your music is best, but music is all subjective. Music has only gotten worse in your opinion because your getting older. I expect to tell children when I'm your age that what they're listening to is shit as well

JoeTyler said:

aardvark15 said:

you realize that your fav artists are from the era of the "old grumpy geezers", right?

Yes but I'm not going to put down modern music just because my some of my favorite artists are from the 70's, 80's and 90's

MickyDolenz said:

robertlove said:

So you think the 2010 songs are still played in 2030?

Don't know. I've never heard any of those songs before, but songs are remembered because they're constantly played, marketed, or the acts are still talked about in the media like Elvis Presley & The Beatles. There's a lot of hits in the past (including the 1980s) that are forgotten and don't get played today. Oldies and classic rock stations only play certain songs over and over, but don't play other songs/acts at all. The local R&B oldies station don't play many uptempo songs, mostly Luther Vandross/Peabo Bryson/Maze ballads and midtempo songs. If you go by what they play, The Isley Brothers are only a slow jam group and nothing else.

Not true. It depends entirely on the market. Here in Charlotte we just got another classic

r&b station which plays only classic r&b. I don't think they even play anything from

the 90's. They play a lot of uptempo songs like Zapp's So Ruff So Tuff, Stephanie Mills

Put Your Body In It, The Isleys The Pride. They really play all the classic old stuff uptempo

and mellow. The original OP made a comparison of number 1's from 1985 vs 2010. Did you really try to counter his point with 1928, 1942, 1953? Seriously dude? Epic fail.

Crazy! I hardly know any of the new songs (all of which have a "feat" in the title ) I've definitely heard a few, but the one I know best is Tic Toc

But I bet my mom knows most of the songs from 1985.

I know quite a few of the ones from 1960. And there is at least one bona-fide timeless classic on that list.

SoulAlive said:

let's just be honest: music from the past is much better than today's music There's just no way around it.I have a 17-year old nephew who agrees with me! He doesn't even listen to the crappy music on the radio today.Instead,he borrows all of my CDs,lol.He likes the music that I grew up on.

I have a nephew that's 12. He listens to a lot of Prince, MJ. He even surprised me

with some Mint Condition and Whitney on his MP 3 player. He doesn't listen to a lot of the newer music. I saw Prince last year in concert and he asked me if he sung Wall of Berlin. I

looked at him with a blank stare. Then he let me listen to it on his MP3 player. Then

i realized it was from LotusFlower. I'm like how in the hell did you get a hold of this.

He loves everything MJ. I agree with you. Sorry if it sounds snobbish but music from

the 60's through the 80's is better than the music now but it is what it is. I like some

of the new stuff but that's probably less than 25 percent. This year alone i've only

bought 1 new release compared to 5 last year.

phunkdaddy said:

SoulAlive said:

let's just be honest: music from the past is much better than today's music There's just no way around it.I have a 17-year old nephew who agrees with me! He doesn't even listen to the crappy music on the radio today.Instead,he borrows all of my CDs,lol.He likes the music that I grew up on.

I have a nephew that's 12. He listens to a lot of Prince, MJ. He even surprised me

with some Mint Condition and Whitney on his MP 3 player. He doesn't listen to a lot of the newer music. I saw Prince last year in concert and he asked me if he sung Wall of Berlin. I

looked at him with a blank stare. Then he let me listen to it on his MP3 player. Then

i realized it was from LotusFlower. I'm like how in the hell did you get a hold of this.

He loves everything MJ. I agree with you. Sorry if it sounds snobbish but music from

the 60's through the 80's is better than the music now but it is what it is. I like some

of the new stuff but that's probably less than 25 percent. This year alone i've only

bought 1 new release compared to 5 last year.

the pop ascension movement of the late 80s has destroyed genuine cultural expression on all fronts....

the music was way better and if anything sounds "decent" today, that song has sampled a melody from back in the day

if sampling was deemed illegal, if the industry was not allowed to sample, the music industry as we know it would be done

another aspect that has led to this

from the 70s up until 1985....we never referred to those who came before us as "old school"...

yeah, those current stars wanted to make their own mark which was great, but the luminaries were respected an acknowledged.......

the term old school was introduced beginning the 1990s so the industry could differentiate the current stars they wanted to promote in the age of video from those from years past, but the funny thing about it, the more they tried to differentiate, the more they had to incorporate the music of yesterday in order for those current artists to thrive

so many factors played into it I can go down the line.....

aardvark15 said:

vainandy said:

No, our grandparents, not parents but grandparents, said our music was too fast. We say the younger generation's music is too slow. We're still young. It's the younger generation that has the closest taste to senior citizens.

Now true. You'll never find a kid who likes top 40 liking anything that your grandparents liked. You may think your music is best, but music is all subjective. Music has only gotten worse in your opinion because your getting older. I expect to tell children when I'm your age that what they're listening to is shit as well

The only reason why they don't like classical music right now is because they're young and feel like they're supposed to be listening to current music and current music only. When they get older and start exploring more music, they're the ones more likely to like classical music much moreso than my generation because classical music was mainly slow and boring and so is the younger generation's music. We didn't get old before our time. We moved forward and progressed while they went backwards to the days of slow and dull. Just face it, a lot of the younger generation is a bunch of wannabe thugs but they're really closet dorky Waldos.

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[Edited 10/25/12 22:56pm]

aardvark15 said:

JoeTyler said:

you realize that your fav artists are from the era of the "old grumpy geezers", right?

Yes but I'm not going to put down modern music just because my some of my favorite artists are from the 70's, 80's and 90's

If a lot more people started putting it down, maybe it would go out of style.

phunkdaddy said:

MickyDolenz said:

Don't know. I've never heard any of those songs before, but songs are remembered because they're constantly played, marketed, or the acts are still talked about in the media like Elvis Presley & The Beatles. There's a lot of hits in the past (including the 1980s) that are forgotten and don't get played today. Oldies and classic rock stations only play certain songs over and over, but don't play other songs/acts at all. The local R&B oldies station don't play many uptempo songs, mostly Luther Vandross/Peabo Bryson/Maze ballads and midtempo songs. If you go by what they play, The Isley Brothers are only a slow jam group and nothing else.

Not true. It depends entirely on the market. Here in Charlotte we just got another classic

r&b station which plays only classic r&b. I don't think they even play anything from

the 90's. They play a lot of uptempo songs like Zapp's So Ruff So Tuff, Stephanie Mills

Put Your Body In It, The Isleys The Pride. They really play all the classic old stuff uptempo

and mellow. The original OP made a comparison of number 1's from 1985 vs 2010. Did you really try to counter his point with 1928, 1942, 1953? Seriously dude? Epic fail.

You're lucky. You got a black R&B oldies station. We had an R&B oldies station but it was white and they wore out 1960s Motown, early 1970s crossover R&B, a few major extremely popular hits from the disco era. I'll never forget the time one of the dumbasses DJs said "That was Le Freak by Chick".

We have a black R&B adult contemporary station that throws down hard Monday through Friday from 12 Noon to 1 p.m. on their "Lunchtime Oldies" hour and for several hours on Saturday afternoons. Other than that, they play some of the dullest R&B adult contemporary from the late 1980s beginning after little miss you-know-who came on the scene, on up until today. They've been on the air since the 1970s and started out as an AM station that played current R&B until the 1990s arrived and they moved to FM and changed their format to R&B adult contemporary.

Andy, you don't think "I'm Your Baby Tonight" is funky song? Not even a little bit?

Terrib3Towel said:

Andy, you don't think "I'm Your Baby Tonight" is funky song? Not even a little bit?

Hell naw.

The only two of those songs from 2010 that I can stand is Not Afriad and Nothing On You... And thats coming from a 17 year old thats supposed to like those kinds of songs... Even then, I only the hook to Nothing On You, and I only like Not Afraid because the message is fairly positive, and because of my memories with that song... So I don't even like Not Afraid musically... Then I looked at the 1985 list and litterally knew almost every song there, and loved all the songs I recognized... See the problem?

Well if music didn't change you wouldn't have had the music you considered classic.

Hudson said:

Well if music didn't change you wouldn't have had the music you considered classic.

The fact that it's classic is the problem. I'm all for genres changing and evolving but you don't' do away with an entire genre and replace it with something worse. If it's replaced with something better, that's fine, but never something worse.

Like disco for instance, it dies off and early 1980s funk replaces it. That's fine, it's very similar sounding music for a while then it evolves into synth funk which was also fine. Gradually changing over a period of time and evolving into a new sound but still with the same rhythm and danceablity just a gradual new sound. Then there's house which was underground which didn't sound as good as the previous music but it still sounded great because once again, same rhythm and danceablity. But for mainstream R&B to just change into bland slow to midtempo music and evolve more and more from that with no mainstream jams being made, that's not moving forward, that's going backwards to the days before the rock and roll and swing eras when everything was rhythmless and dull. You're supposed to evolve on the jams, not the weak stuff. Hell, it took thousands of years for the rock and roll era to come in and change and get away from the dull classical music tempoed stuff and now the fools want to bring dull back and keep it in style forever.

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[Edited 10/26/12 8:39am]

vainandy said:

Terrib3Towel said:

Andy, you don't think "I'm Your Baby Tonight" is funky song? Not even a little bit?

Hell naw.

vainandy said:

Hudson said:

Well if music didn't change you wouldn't have had the music you considered classic.

The fact that it's classic is the problem. I'm all for genres changing and evolving but you don't' do away with an entire genre and replace it with something worse. If it's replaced with something better, that's fine, but never something worse.

Like disco for instance, it dies off and early 1980s funk replaces it. That's fine, it's very similar sounding music for a while then it evolves into synth funk which was also fine. Gradually changing over a period of time and evolving into a new sound but still with the same rhythm and danceablity just a gradual new sound. Then there's house which was underground which didn't sound as good as the previous music but it still sounded great because once again, same rhythm and danceablity. But for mainstream R&B to just change into bland slow to midtempo music and evolve more and more from that with no mainstream jams being made, that's not moving forward, that's going backwards to the days before the rock and roll and swing eras when everything was rhythmless and dull. You're supposed to evolve on the jams, not the weak stuff. Hell, it took thousands of years for the rock and roll era to come in and change and get away from the dull classical music tempoed stuff and now the fools want to bring dull back and keep it in style forever.

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[Edited 10/26/12 8:39am]

Sounds to me like you think music sounds more innovative if the beat is faster. There's a bunch of fast genres out there, and the club euro dance pop crap that we hear too much of right now does have a pretty fast "disco" beat to it. Personally I think artists like Frank Ocean and The Weeknd that often are doing a bit more laid back style sounds way more fresh to me than the euro dance stuff that gets blended with rnb nowadays. Music inspired by the UK underground scene is to me what's taking music forward. Most of these acts don't get a hit single like Rihanna, but they are slowly dominating the industry.

vainandy said:

aardvark15 said:

Now true. You'll never find a kid who likes top 40 liking anything that your grandparents liked. You may think your music is best, but music is all subjective. Music has only gotten worse in your opinion because your getting older. I expect to tell children when I'm your age that what they're listening to is shit as well

The only reason why they don't like classical music right now is because they're young and feel like they're supposed to be listening to current music and current music only.

Considering I'ma young-one, I think I can speak for them and say that this is a false statement. They hear classical music all the time and hate it.

All this back and forth aside...

80s music was simply much better music.

I love pop music and know all the old and new songs and I'd take anything from the 80s (or 90s for that matter) over most of todays craptastic music.

Scorp said:

from the 70s up until 1985....we never referred to those who came before us as "old school"...

I always thought "old school" was a replacement for "oldies but goodies".