Worst year for music, discuss!

[Cartman]

What is, in your opinion, the worst musical year? We have covered the best (1978/9) in some detail, how about turning the discussion on its head and looking for the worst? My nomination is 1986. Hip hop, cover versions, reissues, awful power ballads, the start of SAW dreck. Thoughts guys?

[Gene Hunt]

2024 will take some beating...

GH.

[Cartman]

Out of curiosity, I've done a list of the songs from that year I think are either good, or ok and listenable to, and it is a bit longer than I thought. However, to put this in context, the list for one whole year is shorter than the list for just one month during the peak years of the late 70s.

Ones which I think are good get two stars, ones which I consider to be just ok get one

Pet shop Boys West end girls*
Starship We built this city*
5 star System addict*
Bangles Manic Monday**
Belois Some Imagination*
Talking heads And she was**
Jim Diamond Hi ho silver*
Mike and the mechanics Silent running**
Atlantic Starr Secret lovers*
Peter Gabriel Sledgehammer**
Housemartins Happy hour*
Steve Winwood Higher love**
it bites Calling all the heroes*
Bruce Hornsby and the range The way it is**
Katrina and the waves Sun street*
5 Star Rain or shine*
The The Heartland**
Status Quo In the army now**
Swing out sister Breakout**
Red box For America**

[Three Litre]

Aug 2, 2024 21:36:35 GMT Gene Hunt said:

2024 will take some beating...

GH.

Especially having seen a picture of Sam Smith in a huge dress at the BBC Proms.

Good grief.

[Cartman]

Even what is, IMO, a poor period musically is way ahead of what passes for music now

[Three Litre]

Aug 4, 2024 8:15:24 GMT Cartman said:

Even what is, IMO, a poor period musically is way ahead of what passes for music now

No doubt about that. It's mostly attitude now, not music.

[Nightfly]

Interesting topic, Carty. I'm going to be a bit controversial and throw in 1975:-

I think the midway mark in a great decade, between Glam and the new era of New Wave/Punk and disco brought a kind of stale no-mans land musically and left us with a mish-mash of ballads, novelty songs and all things in-between.

The Glam era was getting tired with the Glam band's success petering out. The Sweet were surviving, even without Chinn/Chapman, but the rest were fast losing popularity. 1975 brought a number of younger Glam bands who were eager to revive the genre, but most ending up as one hit wonders. The Bay City Rollers, who had spent the previous year putting out some decent jolly sing-alongs turned their attention to the soppy ballads aimed at their teen girl fans (and who can blame them when Bye Bye Baby was 1975's top selling single). He who shall not be named was churning out the same stuff which had become lame. Bowie was experimenting with a change in style which took a while to take hold and Bolan was at a low ebb, no doubt due to the fallout from his lifestyle. In my opinion he cleaned up and polished his act and was on the edge of what would have been a great comeback in 1977, had tragedy not struck. Soul and disco was in a similar position as the Philadelphia period ended and it would be another two years before the genre was cooking on gas again.

Still some decent classic hits appeared in 1975, but maybe we needed a breather before next year's hot summer, followed by a fantastic era for the rest of the decade.

[Cartman]

Interesting points Night. 1975 was the year when I really got into chart music, starting in earnest in August/September. I get the assessment that it was a kind of gap between Glam rock/Philadelphia soul and the punk/new wave/disco era. I think that a similar gap was between the tail end of the exciting and creative 1977-82 ish era and Britpop which bailed out the charts. Only difference was this flat no man's land of music lasted about 12 years, rather than one!

[Mickyosan]

Aug 4, 2024 14:49:27 GMT Nightfly said:

Interesting topic, Carty. I'm going to be a bit controversial and throw in 1975:-

I think the midway mark in a great decade, between Glam and the new era of New Wave/Punk and disco brought a kind of stale no-mans land musically and left us with a mish-mash of ballads, novelty songs and all things in-between.

The Glam era was getting tired with the Glam band's success petering out. The Sweet were surviving, even without Chinn/Chapman, but the rest were fast losing popularity. 1975 brought a number of younger Glam bands who were eager to revive the genre, but most ending up as one hit wonders. The Bay City Rollers, who had spent the previous year putting out some decent jolly sing-alongs turned their attention to the soppy ballads aimed at their teen girl fans (and who can blame them when Bye Bye Baby was 1975's top selling single). He who shall not be named was churning out the same stuff which had become lame. Bowie was experimenting with a change in style which took a while to take hold and Bolan was at a low ebb, no doubt due to the fallout from his lifestyle. In my opinion he cleaned up and polished his act and was on the edge of what would have been a great comeback in 1977, had tragedy not struck. Soul and disco was in a similar position as the Philadelphia period ended and it would be another two years before the genre was cooking on gas again.

Still some decent classic hits appeared in 1975, but maybe we needed a breather before next year's hot summer, followed by a fantastic era for the rest of the decade.

Good call for ‘75 and it was partly to blame for what then projected the rest of the decade, as you mention.  

[Mickyosan]

Aug 2, 2024 23:00:26 GMT Cartman said:

Out of curiosity, I've done a list of the songs from that year I think are either good, or ok and listenable to, and it is a bit longer than I thought. However, to put this in context, the list for one whole year is shorter than the list for just one month during the peak years of the late 70s.

Ones which I think are good get two stars, ones which I consider to be just ok get one

Pet shop Boys West end girls*
Starship We built this city*
5 star System addict*
Bangles Manic Monday**
Belois Some Imagination*
Talking heads And she was**
Jim Diamond Hi ho silver*
Mike and the mechanics Silent running**
Atlantic Starr Secret lovers*
Peter Gabriel Sledgehammer**
Housemartins Happy hour*
Steve Winwood Higher love**
it bites Calling all the heroes*
Bruce Hornsby and the range The way it is**
Katrina and the waves Sun street*
5 Star Rain or shine*
The The Heartland**
Status Quo In the army now**
Swing out sister Breakout**
Red box For America**

The rise of videos was also well established by 1986, together with MTV, so that many of these irksome tracks came with the obligatory expensive video.  

The antidote to all of this was solved by listening to the John Peel show, which always provided a great range of different sounds.  I didn’t always enjoy everything Peel played, and with such a great range, who would, but he played so much great and/or obscure stuff that his show was a wonderful listening experience.