Correction: For the record, white gen-xer here.
Really, no Simpson’s reference? Ok I’ll do it.
Everyone knows Rock & Roll attained perfection in 1974. It’s a scientific fact
One factor to keep in mind is that the music you listen to during the first 25 or so years of your life, but especially in your early teen years, molds with your personality. At that age your sense of identity is forming and the art and media you are exposed to carries a certain value and weight because it meshes with your sense of identity. But OP said they were born in 1974, so that wouldn’t explain it.
But one thing I’ve kind of noticed is do musical genres seem to enter their golden age maybe ~20 years after the genre is invented? That seems to have happened with rock & Roll, or rap in a lot of ways. But that could be a coincidence.
Or maybe the cream floating to the top?
I have an untested and probably wrong theory that 20 years is about how long it takes for things to go through the cycle of being cool, then utterly uncool, and then back to being cool again.
I believe there was a bit of a shakedown, and after that the cool kids didn’t have the time.
In response to the OP as opposed to the rest of the thread, DUDE!!!1!! REALLY???
Born in 1970 and yeesh that stuff from the 70s 80s and 90s is old man! Like totally boring overplayed old.
Expand your horizons and your musical pallette man, look for stuff from other places. I have my favorited from back then, but these days I look to other countries, Thailand, Japan, India, Egypt, Vietnam (lots of Asia in there, huh!)
Music isn’t crap these days. Well, maybe American music is, but even there, if you’re willing to look for it there’s probably plenty of good stuff
I disagree. In between stagflation, the iran hostage crisis and the oil crisis the world became a vampire sent to drain
It’s now 2021 America, and I still watch ballet and opera. The difference is that I can watch it at home, online, with my feet up. It has nothing to do with “white boomer culture,” as some of it is being created today.
So are we to assume this song was the pinnacle of pop music, and it’s been downhill ever since? 
Every. Single. Generation. has this argument and it amuses me when people who should know better perpetuate it. In the 1920’s people clutched their pearls over jazz and swing music. Frank Sinatra called rock music emerging in the 50’s as brutal, ugly, and degenerate. Disco was widely assailed.
The 80’s had seminal artists: Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, U2, Madonna, and Guns N Roses.
This whole argument is silly.
I’m thinking more like “I used to be with it, then they changed what ‘it’ was. Now what I’m with isn’t ‘it’ and what’s ‘it’ seems weird and scary to me.”
Indeed. I had an uncle who really only liked classical music, tolerated Lawrence Welk, but hated any kind of pop music that came out after the 1940s. Whenever I hear something like the OP I think of him.
Yeah, digs, I’m somewhat aware of that 
I was born in the mid-70’s. As a music-loving teenager, I delved into Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, early Genesis, ELO, Kansas, the Beatles, Sparks etc. I bought music constantly, but nothing new. The music of the 90’s just didn’t appeal to me. My wife dug Judas Priest the most when she was a teenager in the early 2000’s, while my ex-wife (same age as me) had Barrett-era Floyd, the Doors, and early King Crimson on her plate. My best friend specializes in late-60’s music. He was born in 1971.
So, your characterizations simply don’t hold water.
The way I saw it back then was that mainstream people do mainstream music, while aficionados seek out the best music, regardless of its age.
Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. Subjectivity notwithstanding, there’s good and shitty music in every genre of every generation.
Hell, I’m as old as one can be while still be considered a Gen X-er, and try as I might, I can’t find a decade or even period within a decade that didn’t have music that did or did not appeal to me.
< Objective ( read: polite ) mode off > To me, the artists mentioned in the OP are part of a who’s who of the most overplayed, “easy listening” corporate-rock glurge that I’ve had to suffer through. Add Fleetwood Mac and maybe the Doobie Brothers ( and perhaps Chicago ).
‘Adult Contemporary’. I think I just threw up in my mouth.
Some material from some of the artists listed is IMHO very good, but there is no question that it has been overplayed unto death and well beyond.
Sorry, but I do not accept Doobie Brothers slander here or anywhere.
I’ll meet you half way.
Older Doobie Brothers, say pre-mid 70s. OK.
After that, “Yacht Rock” dreck.
There was a shitload of bad music in the 1970s. We had disco, for god’s sake. But you’d go to parties and people had better music and you learned the names of the albums and artists. I didn’t discover Pink Floyd or Led Zeppelin, Styx or Kansas, Yes or Alan Parsons Project from the radio. Each one was introduced to me by someone who wanted to turn me on to their album. Radio music sucked. Top 40 sucked. Disco sucked. We knew decent music existed but it was less obvious how it was being disseminated. I did know there were FM stations, late night broadcasts. The good music was being passed around. My friend down the block exposed me to Kraftwerk’s Autobahn. My next door neighbor gave me Three Dog Night as a hand-me-down.
You realize of course that there’s a ton of classical music being composed and performed today. And some of it is quite good.
And BTW, in his own lifetime, the most popular of Beethoven’s symphonies was the First, the most traditional of the nine. Lots of people didn’t care for all the new-fangled shit that came later.