Artists of the Decade


Looking back ten years, this decade has produced some of the coolest music. Here are my "hits" and "misses":

Hits:

Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan and U2 did not rest on their laurels, stayed productive in the studio, toured endlessly with real fire, and ended the decade on top of their game.
Not a bad album in the bunch. Not bad for a bunch of geezers whose collective musical experience rests at 130 years.

The Animal Collective, Arcade Fire, Fleet Foxes, Grizzly Bear and a dozen other young bands went their own way and proved that indie music, produced on small labels, is the sound for today. Quirky yes; boring no. Made me forget the 1960s,1970s,1980s, 1990s, and actually live in the moment.

Radiohead put a bullet in the heads of every major music label by offering their music up at any price. They could get away with this because of the brilliance of the music. Name a better band that so effortlessly put out work as diverse as Kid A and In Rainbows. The new Beatles? You bet.

Hats off to Timbaland and Kanye West for taking Hip Hop to new places. Hard not to admire the ear candy that diverse artists like Missy Elliott routinely served up. And to M.I.A., who made it global, without borders, mixing in sounds at will like a chef adds spices.

And kudos to Apple, whose creative energy designed a device called the iPod and software called iTunes that brought convenience and portability to hundreds of millions of end consumers.

Misses:

Watching talented individuals like Ryan Adams and Elliot Smith self destruct.

Having America buy into the herd mentality of American Idol.

The vinyl revolution. Way too much hype for a medium that failed three decades ago. 2 million units actually shipped; yet thousands of Audiogon posts waxing estatic. Nobody actually talks about the dead wax they own and the wide range of quality problems. I pity the suckers who bought into the 180 versus 200 gram hype.
bongofury
webmaster please delete the last post.I mistakenly typed on the wrong string.

Artist of the decade.?????

I love Bruce, but not his later stuff.
I am really having a hard time with this one.No one is outstanding.there will never be another Beatles.

I would say that the winner is:

the producers of idiot shows like "American Idol".
and the promoters of kiddy sex idols like Brittany Spears
pedophilia rock dance crap.

btw why do we care what people look like if all we are doing is listening to their music? I don't watch MTV.

I have to say I don't see rap as music at all.Certainly nothing I am interested in.

I agree that it was a waste of a decade,musically. It is hard to understand that the decade of George II;one of the most devisive and destructive regimes, starting with the war(s) and ending with the biggest bank collapse and subsequent recession in history.
And no one wrote ANYTHING! Where was Neal Young?
I admit that there might have been some rap or hip hop that addressed these times,but to me that medium is unapproachable. Too old you might say, but I can say the same thing about most rock and roll because there is a lot of bad music in rock too.But at least it is music.
They say that art is a reflection of culture.If that is true of this generation,we have problems.
I don't see Rap as to the new century the way Rock was to the 50's or what it later evolved to in the 60's and 70's.
Yes they are both generational,but one is a message and the other is a message with art.Frequently bad art but art never the less. I could never hold Elvis or CSNY or Springsteen to the level of Mozart or Shostakovitch.

I have to give Sting credit for attempting his "Songs from the Labyrinth" John Dowland project.A current rock star singing and playing 16th century equivalent of rock music.
I am sure it didn't sell well.

there are many artists that I could name that were great,but they are obscure and not in the pop scene at all.

for me personally,,,Andreas Scholl(countertenor).
he has taken a little known art form to a place it has never known. His voice has so much power.This is unusual with countertenors.He is a Handel specialist having sung many of Handel's operas,not to mention his 10 Harmonia Mundi recordings.
too bad they are all on CD.

happy Christmas

e
Chas: "good" "melodic" and "Motown vocals" pretty much somes up Beyonce. That is why I assumed you had an epic collection. Bongoman
definitly not a waist of music this decade. i am 53 soon to turn 54. i was like many my age group stuck in the 60's and 70's. infact i remember people saying that the 70's are a waist of music. wrong there as well. there are a lot of new band that are really great. they may not be the beatles or springsteen or the stones or bob dylan, but great all the same. there are to many to name, all though i started a thread in the analog section "New favorite vinyl album" where many have been listed. reissuse are rarely as good as original and that goes for new music as well. you need to widen your horizons and list more then once. Springsteens early stuff(first 4 or 5 albums) no qusetion are his greatest or maybe even the greatest of all time. having said that the "the rising" and "magic" are great albums. "working on a dream" has it's moments. mix that in with all that he has done and been in volved in this last decade and there is just no doubt, ARTIST OF THE DECADE!