Best and worst years for popular music on the radio for you personally?

I am talking about popular music that was played on the radio as currents, on any format you listened to (or on songs you knew of.) That way, some people's years could be different if one person listened to Hot AC, and another AAA, or another Country, if need be. But, I'm mainly talking about broad generalizations about radio music certain years. I think personally 2014 was the worst year for radio music, just because of how many bad rhythmic/teen pop tracks were released that year, and while there were some good, there were bad. Here's a partial list of songs I didn't like:
All About That Bass
Lips R Movin
Shake It Off
Ain't It Fun
Happy
Bang Bang
Rude
And they were especially bad in my opinion. I was going through an especially hard time then, so those songs irritated me just the more. On the other hand, I thought 2008 was probably the best year for radio music, with a lot of pop/rock songs released by Sara Bareilles, Daughtry, Thriving Ivory, Colbie Callait, and many others I really enjoyed, plus a lot of good pure pop like The Veronicas, M.I.A., and a lot of others. What about you?

The closest I can come is country music in 1988, and even then I'm not sure how much of that came from current hits. I also enjoyed country music when I first started listening regularly in 1980 because I thought adult contemporary music might be too loud for me first thing in the morning. Shortly after that I discovered FM soft rock, but I can't say that what I liked about that format was mostly the current hits. The same is true of various styles of soft AC through the 1980s.

I think the first half of the 2010's were pretty rough for pop music. 2015 strikes me as the year when things started to turn around. There was, in my opinion, an oversaturation of generic sounding track from Flo-Rida, Nicki Minaj, Rihanna, Black Eyed Peas, ect.

Somehow I missed the "best and worst" part and I was focusing on the best.

Maybe the mid-70s were good, but not necessarily because of current hits. Charlotte NC had two adult contemporary stations. I didn't know this at the time, but one was actually a Top 40 station which leaned adult, and sources were calling the station adult contemporary only a few years later. By the time I discovered the station, when the other had gone all news, it wasn't too bad. When I had the opportunity to hear the real Top 40 station, it was pretty bad. But I seem to recall the other adult contemporary station, the one that went all news, being softer than the first one. I don't remember any older songs, either. It was years before I heard something described as "oldies" and even then it was a special program. Big band became a full-time format a few years after that on some stations. So I can conclude the station I was listening to played mostly newer songs.

I started listening to Hip-Hop/rap in 1997. It was my Freshman Year in High School. We just got our first full-market Urban Contemporary station in the Hartford Market - JAMZ 910 WNEZ which was 5KW day/night. They were joined in October 2000 by BLAZE 990 WNTY which was 2.5 KW Dat and 80 watts at night. They were a brokered Urban Format with a Caribbean Lean. Blaze communications leased 72 hours a week. They payed more hip-hop and rap than JAMZ 910. Some Old School R&B too. And Saturdays was 12 Straight hours of Caribbean Music - reggae, dance-hall, soca, etc. In 2001 Infinity launched Hot 93.7 and that put JAMZ 910 and Blaze 990 out of business.

Anyway, I digress. I have a wide-range of musical taste, but since 2001 HOT 93.7 has been my main choice for music, but it seems like over the past few years I've been listening a lot less. It's not because I'm older now. (I'm 35). I think it's because a lot of hip-hop music these days sucks. It's not just me. When I was still working at my last job we had a slow night and myself and a few of my 20-something coworkers were discussing music. We all agreed that a lot of today's hip-hop music sucks. Two of them (one who graduated in 2012 and the other in 2013) both said the station was better when they were in high school. I agreed that the station was better back then.

A lot of times I only turn on Hot 93.7 these days is when they play Caribbean Music Friday Mornings and Sunday Nights. More often I now listen to Real 106.1 out of Philly on the i-Heart App. They play mainly Throwback Hip-Hop. And of course I gotta get my Oldies Fix and listen to KOOL 96.1 the Oldies Station. I grew up on Oldies that's why I like them too. (We were a BIG D 103 House-hold when I was growing up). Just like my friend. He's 23 now and in addition to Hip-Hop he likes a lot of 80s Rock music because that's what his father listened to when he was growing up. I also like Freestyle which is like 80s/early 90s Dance Music. There's a 3 hour Freestyle show on LaMega 101.7 every Sunday 6PM-9PM. (Except for this past Sunday when the DJ was recovering from a car crash).

Best: 1962-85. The period from when I got my first radio at age 7 until I turned 30 and completely lost interest in popular music. Music still meant something then. Even the crassly commercial stuff had some merit. OK, forget Disco and Boy George.

Worst: Since 1985. There are exceptions, but between cRap, the dreary, depressing, whiny 1990s, and the autotuned no-talent junk of the last 10-15 years (I won't even get into that abominable Ken-doll known as Bieber!), there's been little worth listening to in over 30 years. That's why I've listened to mostly jazz, blues, and some classic country since then.

Now get off my lawn!

KeithE4 said:

Best: 1962-85. The period from when I got my first radio at age 7 until I turned 30 and completely lost interest in popular music. Music still meant something then. Even the crassly commercial stuff had some merit. OK, forget Disco and Boy George.

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Hey, his gimmick wasn't everyone's thing, but there was nothing wrong with Boy George as a singer and Culture Club as a band. They made great-sounding records.

CTListener said:

Hey, his gimmick wasn't everyone's thing, but there was nothing wrong with Boy George as a singer and Culture Club as a band. They made great-sounding records.

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I agree. If you were willing to listen to AC, a lot of his stuff was good.

vchimpanzee said:

I agree. If you were willing to listen to AC, a lot of his stuff was good.

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OK! OK! How about Men Without Hats, then?

I would have to say shortly after the Beatles came on the scene through about 1985 were the better years. While there were many clunkers, there were a wide variety of artists and groups that escaped the box of 'flash in the pan hits' and expanded music's horizons.

I was a top 40 jock in the mid-1980s, a transition period, and felt that much of the innovation had waned. The 1970s groups seemed to be have spent their talent as far as being creative. It reminded me of that great TV show that becomes sort of worn out and out of fresh ideas by the time the network pulls the plug.

Although by the time the 1990s arrived, much of the new material just didn't fit my music preferences, there were glimmers of good talent outside the plentiful 'formula hits'.

I feel country capitalized on the older top 40 audience that found the top hits were not the type they had been a few years before. A long time country music listener once told me country was not rock and roll with a twang. I tend to agree.

Hip Hop was the true winner by the time the 1990s rolled around. What had been limited to a small circle, burst on the scene but quickly the underbelly surfaced from what had been simply a rehash of the do-wop street corner style modified for the time.

Music preferences splintered along the way. Where a station could play a wide variety of styles with success, everything became intensely focused to form several formats. It is not the best case scenario for the artists as it is now more difficult to break out beyond the specific format. By this, I mean a station cannot play Frank Sinatra, Johnny Cash and Jimi Hendrix and capture the masses.

I hear people my age complain about music of the past couple of decades and exclaim nobody will remember these songs in 20 years. I think I disagree. Some of those songs will be the sound of a generation just like the 1970s is for me. Not all the stuff from the 70s is remembered, just the choice stuff.

My Dad hated top 40 and rock. He said it made him nervous. I remember as a kid saying I'd always listen to what was popular at the time. Gimme a spoon to eat those words. My Dad said what is great music to my generation is something another generation cannot even define as music but noise. He said you'll be scratching your head trying to figure out how your kid's music strikes the same chord with them as your music did and my generation's music did. Smart guy. I think he was right.

Funny thing, today's music does not make me nervous or uncomfortable. It's just not at the top of my list in music preference. But I still see talent here and there as I did in the 1970s. There were plenty of 'little to no talent' flash in the pan groups then as well.

I listen to new music but mostly it is not heard on radio because the group that listens to it just cannot command enough of a share to be viable on radio except in very over radioed markets where a .5 to a 1 beats going against a 100 kw with a 5 of 6 share in hopes you can shave a bit off their audience with your rimshot.

Best: 1954-1984 (with a few additional exceptions beyond '84)

Worst: Post-1984 (absolute junk with very few exceptions)

Best - Probably either 1985, 1988 or 1989.

Worst - This year. Or any in the last ten or so.
I live on oldies stations, and Sirius XM 6,7,8 and 9.

Limiting this to just my teenage years, since other years' music really wasn't aimed at me, anyway:

Best: probably 1975 or 1976. The height of "Beatle reunion fever," among other things.

Worst: 1981. Just a bland year. WAY too much country crossover. (Yeah, it was right after Urban Cowboy, but please!) It just felt like top 40 radio was programmed more for our parents' generation than for us that summer.

Hate to say it, but in my view there was no 'best' or 'worst' period per-se (although no musician worth their weight would say the 60's weren't a revolutionary time for pop music), although there were definite peaks. But even the 60's had its junk. Same with the famed 70's rock era -- there was junk then, too. It's just that the good stuff from those eras really shined.

The early 80's were one of my favorite times for rock and pop, as New Wave had changed a few things on the pop side and Van Halen and AC/DC changed up a few things on the rock side. Then you had the alternative rock stations that were usually on fringe frequencies that played a lot of very cool music.

The 90's were a great time for rock and alternative -- I didn't care for the pop from that era all that much.

The 2000's were a good time for rock; I liked a lot of the nu-metal that was out (although some I disliked intensely). Pop from that era -- not so much.

Around 2012 I re-discovered pop and found a lot of it from the early 2010's was actually pretty good. The rock? Not so much.

Now we're closing the decade and it's a mixed bag. There are a few rock artists I like that put out new music (Shinedown, Pop Evil, Mastodon), and there's the rare pop track, but I am not enthused about anything anymore. I don't think it's age, as I always have had an open mind; and I don't think it's that the music out there is bad: I think it's the fragmentation of everything musical these days, it's not easy to tune into a single station and go "wow, I want to listen to this format all day."

The best years of pop music for me was throughout my middle school years from 2009-2012, since it was the time I began to develop my radio listening routine which I have today.

I recently came to the realisation that I'm a music fan that hates music. As far as I'm concerned the best years for pop/top 40 were 1955-1967 and then again from 1982-1988 (and even as far as 88 is concerned, anything released before August of that year) Most of the hit songs of the first half of 88 were really singles from albums recorded in 86 and 87. By the time the summer was half over, new songs from new albums had been released and the music had drastically changed, and I just haven't been able to get into anything released post 1988.
For Alternative it really was 83 to about 91. After 91 it was ok but went on a quick downward spiral until about 1998, when it picked up again until about 2007-08. Now I find it boring and unchallenging. I hated Metal growing up but once it got really heavy and the vocalists dropped a few octaves, it became listenable for me.
I've never liked country, but I can appreciate some of the early stuff.
I though the music coming out of Mexico in the 90's was very good and I became a huge fan of most of what I heard. It was very different for me, not something you hear in Canada. I also like really high energy merengue. Salsa doesn't do much for me, but there are some tracks that still blow my mind when I hear them.
Nowadays, I mostly listen to baroque and classical, as well as the romantic (classical) music of the 1800's. I still can't quite get into modern (post 1900) classical. I do know that there continues to be good music being made, but I just don't like it very much. I thought then (and now) that the 70's were terrible with some exceptions. The stuff that was good was brilliant, the rest I can do without. I'd say 99% of all music I hear annoys me, but, there has been enough made since the dawn of music that I love. So that's why I call myself a music fan who hates music.

1. rnb and rock from 1964-1974
2. Pop/rock/rnb from 1982-1986
3. rnb and rock from 1975-1979
4. hip hop 1988-1998
5. pop music 2010 to present
6. hip hop 1998-2005
7. rnb and rock 1955-1963
8. alternative rock 1991-1996

boombox4 said:

Hate to say it, but in my view there was no 'best' or 'worst' period per-se

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Excellent point. If we're talking about for me, personally, probably 1961-1967. The early (Pre-Beatle) 60s are often overlooked, because as boombox pointed out, there was a lot of "crap" out there then. But there was also some really good stuff. The four years 1964-67 (inclusive) was loaded with revolutionary and exciting stuff. Then, for the ten years 1968 and beyond, the bloom was beginning to wear off the "revolutionary and exciting", but there was still a lot of good music.

I'd also give a nod to the years 1954-58 when rock music was more or less being "perfected" before the controversy over payola made programmers, record companies, and artists nervous.

That's not to say anything against 1979-present, but I'm talking about my own personal tastes.