 |
Watch all the Billboard Top 10 Videos |
|
|
Click on the right or left site for some sample Videos |
||
|
or go directly to your favorite year - see below! |
||
|
The 1950s offered a combination of sounds for everyone. Rock 'n roll, rhythm and blues, love songs, jazz (first Newport Festival), calypso (Harry Belafonte), and musicals were all popular. Records rather than air play began to determine the popularity of a song. Hit makers were Johnny Ray, Patti Page, Nat King Cole, Teresa Brewer,Tony Bennett, Perry Como, Pat Boone, Doris Day, Eddie Fisher, Frankie Laine, Dean Martin , and Peggy Lee. Groups were popular, including the Platters, Les Paul and Mary Ford, Ames Brothers , Four Aces, Buddy Holly and many others made the huge number of decade hits.In 1956, Elvis became the first rock star. Black recording artists Chuck Berry and Fats Domino became rock 'n roll stars. Color TV became a major influence, stereos were offered for sale, the first Grammy (1959) was given. |
||
| --------------------------- | ||
|
The sixties were the decade of Pop Music, Protest Songs, protesting the war, Rhythm and Blues, Motown, musicals, and the Beatles. In 1969, Woodstock was attended by 300,000. A three day even for peace, love and rock took place. Performers included Janis Joplin, Sly and the Family Stone, Led Zepplin, The Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane ............... |
||
| --------------------------- | ||
|
One of the first events of the 70s was the break up of the Beatles in 1970. However, the seventies were also when many legendary rock bands started, or hit their peak, including Queen, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull, Lynyrd Skynyrd, AC/DC, Fleetwood Mac, Status Quo, Free, Aerosmith, the Eagles, Black Sabbath, Kiss, Heart, The Who, The Doors, Uriah Heep, and Van Halen, to name a few. The first half of the 1970s saw many jazz musicians from the Miles Davis school achieve cross-over success through jazz-rock fusion. Art rock, progressive rock and glam rock were also popular. One of the most successful European groups of the decade was the quartet ABBA. The Swedish group, first found fame when they won the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest. To many people, the Seventies will be most remembered for the rise in disco music.The mid-seventies saw the rise of punk music from its protopunk/garage band roots in the 1960s and early 1970s. Towards the end of the decade, Jamaican reggae music, already popular in the Caribbean and Africa since the early 1970s, became very popular in the U.S. and in Europe |
||
| --------------------------- | ||
|
The decade began with an anti-disco backlash in the US, and 80s music would be characterized by the widespread use of synthesizers and keyboards. In the United States, MTV was launched and music videos began to have a huge effect on the record industry. Pop artists such as Duran Duran, Madonna, Queen, and Michael Jackson mastered the format and helped turned this new product into a profitable business. Hard rock, heavy metal, big hair bands, and glam metal, experienced extreme popularity, becoming one of the most dominating music genres of the 1980s.New wave and synthpop, techno and house music became popular phenomena throughout the decade, especially in the early and mid eighties. The hip hop scene continued to evolve .. |
||
| --------------------------- | ||
|
By the early 1990s, rock was dominated by commercialized and highly produced pop, rock, and "hair metal" artists, while MTV had arrived and promoted a focus on image and style. This decade saw the continuation of teen pop of the 1980s and the emergence of grunge music and alternative rock in pop culture replacing glam metal by 1992 and the beginning of hip hop. It also featured the rise of contemporary country music music as a major genre. |
||
| --------------------------- | ||
|
Music can be divided into genres in many different ways but these classifications are often arbitrary and controversial, and closely related styles often overlap. Many do not believe that generic classification of musical styles is possible in any logically consistent way. |