100%. I'm stuck in the 80s as they were my formative years. I get a bit of the 70s in it as that is what I remember hearing first, but 1980s to me was when music was music, Those born before or after me will disagree, but won't be wrong or right.
Talking of the 80s, you know when you are old when you realise you are 3 years older than the girl in the ultimate one hit wonder from 1987 Redone in 2019:
While I agree that there is great and creative music in every era it is just the sheer volume of it in the 60s and 70s particularly. Who are the Beatles, Dylan, Stones, Hendrix, Beach Boys, Clash, Sex Pistols, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Joni Mitchell, Led Zeppelin, Neil Young equivalents since then? You only have to see greatest albums of all time lists to see that those two particular decades dominate the top of them. The Beatles broke up fifty years ago now and are still probably the most famous band and copied band ever. I speak as a person whose favourite band came from the 80s and I love 90s music too.
Fair enough. Good to know my google fu still works though Is it worth listening to her old stuff or is the new a bit of a departure and should I go in fresh?
The new single is, like all great songs, immediately compelling on first hearing, but gets better and better the more you listen to it. I loved all her old stuff but this is on another level. I want the album and I want it now! And the video is just breathtaking!
I agree with all you say, of course, and I know you all know all this - these are just my thoughts. I also predominantly listen to bands and albums from the '60s-'80s, though my late teenage years were in the '90s. I'm not sure its for us to say who those equivalents will be. It's of course increasingly hard to be influential, as pop has eaten itself many times over since, and in that era it had barely gotten to the table and tucked its napkin into its collar. So yes, hard to be as influential as many times over - but I don't think the creativity has ever stopped. If anything, I personally think there is more infinite variety now than there was then - more branches to explore, a wider variety of genres and peaks. I guess the way music has been marketed and what labels were buying at any given time means mainstream music has invariably often been abysmal since that heyday, but that's on record labels and mass public tastes! On a different note, though, and away from the point, I always try to remember that most of those album lists are compiled by white music journalists of a certain age, and were embedded into our consciousnesses as immoveable musical granite blocks early on, and it is always publications like Mojo, Rolling Stone, Q etc. If it's not them, it's their readers voting - almost identical types of people who grew up reading and being influenced by those lists. I definitely don't count them as definitive - though I can't and don't want to change how I relate to that music - and I'm sure the current generation, who famously don't even buy or listen to albums, won't either.
Sounds like she’s wearing that Saints shirt we bought her.... well, if her manager had anything about him she would be!