“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness.” –Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities 

It’s the human condition to believe we live in the best of times and the worst. Psychologists have terms for various strains of bias that inform our opinions, and Dickens’ famous line encompasses them all. I’m biased, you’re biased, and the whole damned system is biased, but this particular article focuses most on what could be called a recency bias. Our recency bias causes us to believe that recent events are weightier, more relevant, and the only era to consider. The recency bias in this article comes with one asterisk, we welcome anyone to challenge the totality of the information within. 

A qualifier such as that one satisfies most, but there are always some, who interrupt your little presentation with, “Yeah, but aren’t you biased?” and they say it with one of those grins that suggest they caught you with the accusation that you might be biased. To which I say, “Well, you caught me, but I did say that at the very beginning. Check the minutes of your transcript of our little conversation in this bistro.” So, rather than try to qualify every single nugget of what I’m about to write, go ahead and place a parenthetical “back to top” at the beginning, or the end, of each statement if that’s what you need to do to assure yourself that I admit to having a mean case of recency bias.

If you’re going to challenge my recency bias, however, I ask you to name an era of entertainment that matches the total output from the 1970’s to the 1990’s. We’re talking top-notch, quantity of quality, from the era of your argument to mine. Everyone has their opinion, of course, and some say that some of the artists were overhyped by the marketing teams spending huge dollars to see to it that their artist made it to the A-List. This happened frequently during this thirty-year chunk of time, as the individual eras therein were chock full of money to be spent in all avenues of entertainment, but with the advantage of hindsight, we can weed through the A-List to ferret out the true artists from the pretenders. Even after doing this, the A-List from this thirty-year era is still daunting. 

We all go through this thirty-year era and parse out which was better than the other, but taken together as a whole, I believe the total number of quality-to-great movies, the sheer breadth of music, and comedy from the era between 1970 and 1999, will not only go down as the greatest era of entertainment in the United States, but most future eras won’t even try to compete. They’ll just go retro, and try to buy the catalogs of the artists from the era, from whomever owns it “now”, to pursue ways to use it and re-use it, market it, and merchandise it in the future. Some might include the 1960’s in some of those entertainment venues, and others will include the 2000 to 2010 era, but after watching, reading, and listening to just about everything from those eras, everything in the 60’s now seems to prelude be this thirty-year peak, in retrospect, and just about everything that followed seemed to be trailing off.

There are exceptions to the rule, of course, as there are always going to be exceptions to every rule. There will always be a couple great movies in any given year, a few great albums here and there, and future comedians who deliver exceptional material. If you lived through this era though, you knew to expect that an exceptional artist would deliver something exceptional in any given month. It was, at times, tough to keep up. While reading this, I’m sure you thought of some exceptions, you think your favorite music artists from the 60s was exceptional, and others thought of their favorite movie from the 00s, and you probably think I’m leaving some critical artists off this list. The point is we could asterisk every era with exceptions, but the general point remains.

The 1990’s were the first era in which I had any real disposable income of my own, and I almost went broke numerous times, trying to rent every movie that had ever been made, listen to every album of music ever created, and I stayed up late to listen to every comedian the late-night talk shows invited on. The reader might consider it a bold statement to say I knew everything vital and important to come from this thirty-year peak, or they might consider it a little sad that I devoted so much of my free time and disposable income to this pursuit, but few who know me would challenge my knowledge of the mostly inconsequential information from the field of entertainment that occurred during this era. 

The 1970-1999 era was the best of times for those who wanted free time, disposable income, and free space of the mind to consider artistic endeavors. Depending on their political orientation, some politically biased writers might consider specific eras, in this thirty-year chunk of time, the worst of times, depending on the party in power at the time. In my humble opinion, as one who lived it, lived through it, and now looks back with a wistful eye at the glorious times we all had, that’s a big ball of nonsense. It’s a feeble attempt to rewrite history through a politically biased lens, and I write that asking the reader to consider that when one goes down the list of parties in power, over the course of this thirty-year chunk of time, it’s mostly even.    

Unless you consider The Cold War with Russia an actual war, the 70’s were the first era that was largely free of war. The Vietnam War ended in 1975, and that was preceded by the Korean War, and WWII. Except for a few skirmishes here and there, the era between 1975 and 2001 was largely free of war. Except for a few moments here and there, America experienced such a great era of stability and prosperity for thirty years that we had so much free time that we didn’t know what to do with ourselves, so we invented scandals, controversies, and fears of the future for mostly entertainment purposes. We also had massive amounts of disposable income and free space of the mind to focus on artistic endeavors. As much as we hate to admit it now, in a historical perspective, we lived and still live, in the best of times. 

 

There were so many factions and fractions in movies, music, TV, and books for the average consumer to consider, and yet we all agreed on most topics. A walk through the A-List contributors in the early 70’s, in music and the movies, is so daunting that I won’t even try to list them. The list in the 80’s and 90’s not only continued this legacy, but these eras may have topped the 70’s by sheer volume. Before we move on, think about that A-List for just a second. How many different, varied, and talented artists littered that A-List compendium. We usually try to shorten that list a little, just for sake of conversation, but the A-List of that era is so long that we feel a need to limit entrants just so we can have a decent conversation on that topic just to avoid putting our listeners to sleep. Think about the great directors, and how many movies they released during this thirty-year chunk of time. Think about all of the various musicians, and all of their various templates. We could devote this entire article to the Billboard Top 100, the Top of the Pops, or any of the other publications and venues that tried to top one another with the A-list artists they featured. Now, think of the magazines, both mass market and more niche ones, that tried to cover the A-Lists of music, the movies, books, and entertainment in general.

As one who wasn’t exclusively ensnared by A-list celebrities, and rock stars, I often found myself enjoying the entertainment put out by those others might call the B-List artists, C-Lists, and D-lists, and in that endeavor, I found an exciting new release almost weekly. As I wrote, I almost went broke numerous times trying to keep up, stay hip, and know every reference point, joke, and conversation topic people were having. Some call these conversations “water cooler” conversations, the coffee shop, or the break area. Whatever the case was, I was one of those who had to know, and there were so many movies, so much music, and so many great books and comedians to know about, for someone who had to know, that no past era compares when it comes to pure output and I dare say no future era will even try to compete. If you love music, movies, books, and comedy it was the greatest era in human existence to be alive.  

My nephews, some thirty years my junior, insist that the 80s were greatest musical era ever created, and they don’t even bother trying to defend “their” era. They have no allegiance to it in anyway. They state that the 80s were the greatest era of music as if it’s not only a fact, but a fait accompli that’s not even worth arguing. They don’t list one particular artist as the game-changing artist, as many of us will, but they do try to compile a list of influential artists that I considered quite daunting, and they insist no other era can compete. Even though I had nothing to do with the music in this era in anyway, I took some pride looking back and hearing an outsider consider this era I lived through the greatest era ever. Due probably to my age, more than anything else, I’m more of a 90s guy, and being a 90s guy, I always considered the 80s a silly era of music, until my nephews put their  spin on it. I also write all of this with the asterisk pointed to the notion that proponents of any era between the 60s and the 00s have valid arguments for “their” era.

My rhetorical question, sent out to the ether, is will future inhabitants in the United States be having arguments over the specific eras of this thirty-year chunk of time for the next 60 to 70 years? Will there be a “rock revival” in 2050 that puts the 80s music to shame? Will there be a return-to-roots revival in the movie industry that puts the sheer output of the movies from the 70s in the dustbin? Some argue that with the proliferation of streaming services and the various outlets on the internet, Americans will never collectively agree on great artistic outputs ever again. They argue that there’s just so much to choose from that it inhibits the idea of a Michael Jackson, a Star Wars, or even a more recent release like the book The Da Vinci Code from ever rocking our world in quite the same manner. These arguments discount the genius effect, of course, as every era has their own geniuses. The question I have, and it seeks to be as objective as possible for someone obviously imbued with a whole bunch of biases, is will those future geniuses ever be able to take future generations to the point that they can finally put 1970 to 1999 to rest, or will 2070 America still be arguing the relative merits of Michael Jackson vs. Madonna; Spielberg vs. Lucas vs. Coppola; Seinfeld vs. Leno; and Chevy Chase vs. Steve Martin vs. Bill Murray?   

One of the primary reasons there might never be an era that tops these eras is the topic no common fan wants to talk about but they are know: money. There was so much money to be had in movies and music that the executives and their boardrooms didn’t mind pouring money into their marketing department, because they knew they’d get it back. They didn’t always get it back, of course, but how many guys with nothing but a guitar strapped to their back receive the kind of funding and support they may have made twenty years ago? How many “good looking waiters who can act” is a movie studio going to bank on if a majority of the money they see is from the comparatively flat streaming services? The amount of money that man may have made for himself and those who supported his rise, just isn’t there anymore, not like it was between 1970 and 1999.    

There will always be exceptions to the rule, as I wrote, and there will always be exceptional exceptions, but the sheer output from so many different, varied artists, from so many different corners of the country, that occurred in those thirty years, will probably never be matched in my humble opinion, an opinion obviously derived from a recency bias.