Over the years, music would change drastically due to better technology, and how music is being created and written, and new artists changing what people are into.  There are dramatic changes when you compare top selling artists and albums in each decade. Because of these changes, people obviously have different opinions on which decade had the best music. Here’s mine.

Main genres in the 1960s consisted of rock, blues rock, and soul. It was during this decade many big selling bands that we still know today became popular, bands like The Beach boys, Creedence Clearwater, The Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd and The Beatles.

The biggest album of this decade was “Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” by the Beatles. The album sold 32,000,000 copies worldwide. This album had songs that basically sum up the main genre of this decade, of course there were songs that are more rock that were popular too.

The ‘70s consisted of the same genres as the ‘60s, but I would say the ‘70s was the awakening of rock/hard rock becoming extremely popular. Though soul, jazz, and R&B were still very popular.

It was also during the 70s that Led Zeppelin became even more popular with rock and heavy rock. In 1971 the band released the album “Led Zeppelin IV,” this album ended up selling over 37 million copies. It was also Led Zeppelin that influenced heavy rock, their music was pretty diverse compared to other music.

Another band in the 70s that became popular was Queen. The British rock band became very popular fairly quickly. Even now you can ask almost anyone and they would know who Queen is. The band came out with many memorable songs like “We Will Rock You,” “We are the Champions,” and “Rhapsody.”

Stevie Wonder was the heart of soul, funk, and jazz. Stevie took home 12 Grammy awards between 1970 and 1979. Though he was very popular during the ‘70s I would say he was even a  bigger hit in the ‘80s.

I feel that the ‘80s was the peak of rock and roll, though another popular genre during this decade was country. During the ‘80s, many of the rock bands that formed in the ‘70s started to become more and more popular, Queen was still coming out with popular songs like “Another One Bites the Dust,” which sold over 7 million copies.

Michael Jackson who is known to almost everyone came out with many popular songs people still listen to today. “Billie Jean,” “Thriller,” and “Beat It,” were all released in 1982, which are songs that even teens still listen to.

The ‘90s was the birth of rap, hip-hop and even more R&B, pop and rock. For me the ‘90s has the best music and genre. I love rock and rap and I grew up listening to a lot of ‘90s. Many rappers that are still popular and making music today became what many teangers during the ‘90s listened to.

Though “Smells Like Teen Spirit” was an insanely popular song by Nirvana in the 90s it was almost the start of the end for rock. Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, and Notorious BIG were basically the big faces of gangster rap, they became insanely popular and built a pretty crazy reputation for themselves. TLC was also a big R&B girl group, people never really saw a girl group become as popular as they were.

The 2000s was filled with pop rock, rap and a lot of love pop songs. During the 2000s more female artists were coming out with more than just pop, many women were becoming more and more popular.

Other slow rock bands were still popular like Green Day, Coldplay, and Gorillaz. Music from Beyonce was extremely popular and many of her songs were listened to a lot.

Rappers were still popular, music from Eminem was becoming more of a the person to listen to even after his joke rap music started to slow down and he came out with more genuine and heartfelt music. His album “The Marshall Mathers LP” was one the top selling albums having sold 7.92 million copies.

The 2010s will always have a special place in my heart because I grew up hearing that music every time the radio was on. Many young artists that are popular today started their music then, people like Lil Nas X, and Billie Eilish.

The top artist of the 2010s was Drake who through years and years will always be popular. Many of Drake’s most popular albums and songs were released from 2010 all to 2019, albums like “Take Care,” ”More Life,” and “Thank me Later,”

Another crazy thing that came from the 2010s was female rappers becoming extremely popular. Nicki Minaj becoming the Queen of Rap. Songs like “Super Bass,” and “Anaconda” were extremely popular and honestly those songs are bops.

Music now in my opinion is only good depending on the artists, I believe nobody actually genuinely likes the music that is played on the radio and many songs that are popular are popular because of TikTok. Everybody that I know listens to music that doesn’t hit our local radio stations.

Many teenagers listen to rap or indie music, many songs people listen to are songs by Baby Keem, Tyler the Creator, and recently Kendrick Lamar. Though Kendrick Lamar has been popular since the 2000s, Kendrick hasn’t dropped an album for five years until recently.

“Mr. Morale and the Big Steppers” was dropped May 13th, 2022 with over 60 million streams so far. Personally I have been listening to the album almost everyday.

Overall if I had to choose the best decade I would choose the ‘90s. It has all the genres I love and artists I still listen to as well. I know many people and have friends who would prefer the ‘90s.

What about you? What’s your favorite decade?

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