Do you all agree when Prince said the 60s, 70s and 80s were the golden ages of music?

Well, Prince included a decade that includes himself, of course. Mick Jagger agrees with him, but the reason being that the period coincides with a window within which the landscape of recording technology and merchandising allowed artists to vastly profit from their work on a mass market scale. With the introduction of digitization, it’s no longer possible and artists today, like in the 30s, 40s, early 50s, etc must tour and perform live to generate most of their income. Except for the infinitely small few who break through with tens of millions of video views, YouTube doesn’t provide a sustainable income.

I see how this shift has affected my daughter who is a professional singer songwriter performer.

This window not coincidentally coincides with a certain generation. The one that includes those obsessed with audiophile quality…us here on audiogon.

I agree that it’s three decades but I’d move the needle: mid 50s to mid 80s. Some good stuff in the 50s.

Anyone who thinks Prince is overrated does not know what they are talking about. Prince is by no means a personal favorite of mine, but his genius is impossible to ignore. Lyrically, maybe meh, but the music is dense, textured, complex. And he played all the instruments himself, did his own engineering, etc. A formidable talent in any generation.

My father would argue that the Big Band era of the 30's & 40's was the "Golden Age" of music. We all (or most of us) prefer the music we grew up with thus there is no right answer.

I think there was great music in every era.I have alot Classical,Ja ,Rock and Soul...you can keep hip hop....

I've long felt that the best era for music was actually from around 1957 to 1967.
Buddy Holly, Elvis, Chuck Berry, Nat King Cole, Roy Orbison, Phil Spector, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Dylan, Donovan, the Who, the Velvet Underground, the Doors, Love, the Kinks, Hendrix, the Mamas and Papas, the Incredible String Band, the Byrds, the Hollies, the Moody Blues etc.

All within a period of 10 years or so!

I think it was the Beatles press officer Derek Taylor who once said that June 1st 1967, the release of Sergeant Peppers Lonely Hearts Club, may well have the high water mark of not only popular music, but western civilization itself.

Perhaps a touch of hyperbole there, but you can see where he's coming from. I can imagine that it could have been a very expensive business trying to buy all the worthwhile vinyl back in '67.

For sure the 1970s (Led Zeppelin, Bowie, Springsteen, Sex Pistols, Joy Divison etc) and even the 1980s (the Smiths, the Pogues, U2 etc) certainly had their moments, but the emergence of first Disco and then Rap seemed to have changed forever the direction of the music industry.

I would say the late 50's, 60's and 70's .... stereo analog LP era.

I can not stand Prince by the way.