I looked around for information to get the discussion started and came across this website

HERE

covering Top 40 songs by year from the 1930s to the 1990s. I thought I'd pose this question to major audiophiles: Which decade has the largest shift in popular music taste? Breaking down the years starting with 1930 to 1939, 1940 to 1949, 1950 to 1959, 1960 to 1969, 1970 to 1979, 1980 to 1989, and 1990 to 1999.

The focus is on Top 40 hits and not so much on avant-garde styles like BeBop, Acid Rock, Punk, and Thrash Metal. Although the variety of musical styles per decade is an interesting subject as well.

Right now I'm teatering between the 1950s and the 1960s, but I'd like other well-informed opinions.

I was born at the tail end of the 50's, so I can't speak from experience, but I've heard it put as the first decade where the children didn't listen to the same music as their parents.

I do remember the the 60's, and the almost violent reaction that adults had to the new music. I actually remember adults discussing how hippies should be killed. I also remember the disgust shown towards relatives that were in 60's rock bands, disgust from folks that had been band musicians in their youth.

Just taking a glance year-by-year there seems to be some wild swings in songs. Just a few from the "G"s in 1969 alone:

Gitarzan - Ray Stevens (#8)
Give It Up or Turn It a Loose - James Brown (#15)
Give Peace a Chance - John Lennon & The Plastic Ono Band (#14)
Going in Circles - The Friends of Distinction (#15)
Going Up the Country - Canned Heat (#11)
Goo Goo Barabajagal (Love Is Hot) - Donovan with The Jeff Beck Group (#36)
Good Lovin' Ain't Easy to Come By - Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell (#30)
Good Morning Starshine - Oliver (#3)

The '50s had the biggest seismic shift in style - the R&B, rockabilly, and rock'n'roll of that decade formed the blueprint for everything that followed in popular music and youth culture. So I'd say the '50s and Elvis Presley and Ray Charles in particular.

Maybe it's just the era I grew up in, but a lot of rock from the late 1960s to the early 1970s appears to have more staying power on radio nowadays. I remember listening to "Golden Oldies" in the 1970s playing stuff from the 1950s and early 1960s, but most of those songs have faded away. Today were are bombarded with songs in commercials and TV shows and they are largely from mid-1960s to mid-1970s. Songs that don't sound as old as they really are. Again, this could all be just my perception.

A bunch of Top 40 hits have fallen off the face of the earth never to be played again. Scanning the lists of hits in 1968 and 1969 some don't even ring a bell with me and I grew up listening to the radio a lot around that time! I can't recall a band named "1910 Fruitgum Company" at all!

Yes, but your original post was about the biggest change, not which music had more lasting popularity. Most music fades away over time. The music of the '60s and '70s just builds on the template of '50s music.

I'm having trouble identifying with the early to mid-1950s. I can't say I've heard a lot of music from that time period. My exposure to music, as a kid, jumped from Big Band and Swing to R&B and Bubblegum. What styles fell between those?

I was born in 1970 and so I'm going to narrow my focus to the years of my own life. For me music made a drastic change with the emergence of rap music. Personally I don't care for rap, but my biggest issue with some of it is the massive use of profanity along with the blatant exploitation of women(I know.....separate issue). Anyway for me the biggest decade of change was the 80s. Seems like the first half of the 80s was mostly pop with a European bent and dance pop......then little by little rap music started to creep in and was being embraced by Aerosmith and many of the songs and videos were funny. I honestly thought rap was going to be a 5 year fad and would pass.....much like the way I'm sure many people felt about 50s rock and roll.

It's difficult for me to narrow this to a particular decade because rap didn't really "take over" until much later. We went through the hair-metal phase and grunge and all that.

Interesting topic! Thought provoking and headache inducing.

From Fats Domino's "The Fat Man" in 1949 to Ray Charles up through the '50s, R&B was the most vital genre in popular music. Although Ray Charles is credited with inventing soul in the mid-fifties, that genre didn't really take off before the '60s. The '50s saw jazz become a more intellectual genre, and R&B, doo wop, rockabilly, and rock'n'roll take over as the sound of a new youth culture.

As a fan of The Beatles, I'd love to say that the 60's saw the greatest shift, but I can't. It was the 50's. "Rock Around The Clock" hit pop music like an atomic bomb. There's a pretty clear demarcation of pop music pre-RATC and post-RATC.

60's; especially mid-late.

"That's Alright, Mama" and "Tutti Frutti" had greater impact, I think. "Rock Around the Clock" had the movie exposure of course, was it "The Blackboard Jungle"?

The 50's - The age when Hank Williams was blended with Howlin Wolf and Muddy Water and Louis Jordan. A time of wild expermentation - cutting records on a shoe string budget - not knowing what they'd record until they went to the studio...

Little Richard and Chuck Berry defining Rock and Roll

Sam Philips discovering one act after another - the only problem was he didn't have the cash to promote them all (Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison, Howlin Wolf, Billy Lee Riley, Sonny Burnette, Charlie Feathers etc)

Kids like Buddy Holly, Eddie Cochran, Gene Vincent, Ritche Vallens walking into a studio an unknown and coming out stars.

Bo Diddley defining the rock and roll beat.

The Do-Wop groups, Chess records, Sun Records, music coming from all small labels.

Elvis took rock and roll and made it acceptable.

The 50's were truely a music revolution - and the decades that followed simply expanded that revolution.

60's beatles and on

80's end of vinyl as we knew it

00's end of music buying in stores as we know (i hope i'm wrong)

The 1950s!

The chart-topping songs from the first half of that decade were so tame that they could be referred to as easy listening (for example, "How Much is that Doggy in the Window" or "Mister Sandman.").

As we all know, the second half of the decade was dominated by the rock n' roll revolution.

I guess part of my reasoning for singling out late 60s to early 70s longevity was meant to show a slowing of change in accepted pop music. The 1950s had the birth of Rock 'n' Roll, but the 1960s had a huge jump in the evolution of Rock 'n' Roll. Harmony wasn't a big issue by the late 1960s. Bob Dylan's voice is closer to the common man than anything close to barber shop vocals.

And the raw energy and complete disorganization of The Kingsmen "Louie, Louie" saw the birth of garage rock.

I see a bigger change in the 60's then the 50's due to psychedlic rock (Airplane, Dead, Doors, late Beatles etc). To me 50's rock was a logical extension of 40's & early 50's R&B & Jump. Of course early 60's was a huge step back to 40's & 50's lillywhite saccharin pop.

Renny,

Just a small correction. Vinyl didn't die, it just thinned out and the main years of that thinning was 1990-91. And now, with all the top equipment and high grade vinyl coming out, it is as good as ever for vinyl junkies like myself and many others to get out fix.

As for the decade with the most change, my vote is for the 80's. We had disco, the Urban Cowboy resurgance, New Wave, classic rockers going soft, punk, hair metal and the early stages of grunge and boy bands. No other decade even comes close.

rich,

i know, but what i was trying to say was that for all intents and purposes vinyl began a slow death when CD's came out in 1984, although it didn't read quite the way i meant it.

just as CD's are dying a slow death right now because of downloads.

i believe that, for a while, you will still be able to purchase vinyl and CD's but as "we' get older, this will become harder and harder to do.

renny

I have to agree with GoogaMooga's comment that the music of the '60s and '70s builds on the template of the '50s. And the '80s pretty much put it all in a blender and whipped it into froth. With the rise of rap and hip-hop and the complete fragmentation of radio, though, the '90s brought a seismic shift. So, even thpough I hate the result, I'd have to vote for that decade.

Gotta be the 60's. Some good arguments are being made here for the 50's, but when I think about pop music in 1960 and where it was at the end of 1969, that's a revolution.

The 50's really set the template for what was to come.

It was the first time black music"race records" were counted in the Top 40.

Also regional artists and regional hits were the name of the game there was a HUGE amount of diversity: country, the rise of the hard gospel quartets, bluegrass, conjuncto, tejano, even polka, doo wop, rockabilly, blues (electric and Country), jump blues, Jazz(cool and bop) all these put out 78's/45's with the aim of jukebox and radio air play(first locally, then regionally, maybe nationally).

The youth explosion that coincided with 50's rock'n'roll was the template upon which the labels, distributors, publishers,promoters, radio stations, TV, film, PR machinery got their first taste, then came the 60's, 70's, 80's etc