I just had a simular conversation on FB on which generation had the best music. Baring style, and popularity I focus more on the technology. The music industry went through more technological advances during the late 50’s through the late 80’s than any other point in time. My short answer was very simply "We came from vinyl to reel to reel, 8 track, cassette, CD, Digital and back to vinyl still looking for audio nirvana. I grew up during the 60’s and still love the Motown music, but with that being said I hate the sound quality of the recordings. No matter if it was the Beatles, The Who or James Brown those early 60’s recordings played on anything above an old transistor AM radio shows the lack of depth and richness of recordings by those same artist in the late 60’s and early 70’s. The Jazz genre has been the most consistent in recording level since the mid 70’s and early 80’s to this day for the most part. I can play a old David Sanborn album 70’s (digital track) another from Fourplay 90’s and get a consistent level of sound quality than I get from other genre of music. The 80’s brought in, IMHO, the best standard of music recording the introduction of CD’s/digital recordings made it easier to create high quality master recordings. One thing I always preach about is a bad master recording will always produce a bad recording no matter how great the artist is. I don’t get all excited about remastered music by long ago artist. to many times I have been disappointed hearing a poor quality recording again using newer technology. All the DAC’s, Amp and $5k speakers can't save a poor master recording. So in reference to what Prince may have been referring to, weather it be talent or style, the technology has brought music further down the road than any one group or artist.
