My favorite band from every decade since the 60s

Hot take: music is good. I know; you don’t have to agree.

My love for rock music stems from my childhood, when I didn’t know that there was music outside of Bruce Springsteen because my dad didn’t play anything else in his car. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about my favorite artists, and I decided to make this list of my favorite bands of each decade since 1960.

1960s: The Beatles

Yeah, I know. This is the safe pick for this decade. But is there really any other choice that makes sense (besides maybe the Rolling Stones)? And I’m not just picking them for their name recognition alone. I love The Beatles. They’ve been in my top three artists on Spotify for each of the past three years. Their discography is legendary, with each of their last eight albums having a case as a perfect album.

1970s: Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band

This is more of a personal choice for me, as I did grow up with The Boss’s music, but Bruce didn’t miss in the 70s. His debut “Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J.” is one of the better debut albums out there. “The Wild, the Innocent & The E Street Shuffle” is filled with energy. “Born to Run” is a perfect album and one of my favorites of all time. And “Darkness on the Edge of Town” cemented Bruce as a rock legend. He was great in the 80s, but his album lineup in the 70s is hard to beat.

1980s: Tears for Fears 

This was a bit of an unexpected pick even for me, but “Tears for Fears” was great throughout the 80s. “Everybody Wants To Rule The World” is one of the greatest songs of all time, and “Songs From The Big Chair” is one of the definitive albums of the 80s. Not to mention, their original version of “Mad World” is the best version of that song.

1990s: Alice in Chains

There are a lot of great picks from the 90s. Nirvana, Green Day, and The Cranberries are some of the best bands from this period. But I’m going with Alice in Chains. They did an amazing job meshing the grungy sound of 90s rock with metal. The chorus of “Man in the Box” exudes a confidence like no other song I’ve ever heard.

2000s: My Chemical Romance 

I had a hard time deciding between MCR and The Killers for this decade. But eventually I settled on MCR because they released three of the greatest punk albums of all time (one was in 2010, but this is my list). “Welcome to the Black Parade” is a battle cry for a generation, and the release of “The Black Parade” in 2006 was a phenomenon.

2010s: Ghost

Ghost was without a doubt in my mind the best band of the 2010s. “Meliora” and “Prequelle” are two of my favorite metal albums of the 2010s, as they do a great job of blending the genre with pop. Songs like “Dance Macabre,” “Square Hammer” and “Deus in Absentia” have so much drive and energy that it’s hard for me to imagine anybody being able to not dance (at least a little bit) to them. I can’t wait to see what Ghost does throughout the 2020s.

You can contact Ryan at rvigilan@nd.edu