I feel bad for GenX'ers that missed out on the 60s and 70s.

It was the backdrop of what happened during the 60s and 70s that made the music of that era so memorable, along with what were at the time, some technological advances that helped fuel the fire (FM stereo, the lowly cassette), along with live events like Woodstock and the Monterrey Pop Festival. Social upheaval drove much of what made the music probably more relevant than it's been since.....the Kennedy/King/Kennedy assassinations, the Vietnam war, man landing on the moon (take that Elon Musk/Richard Branson!), the Kent State shootings, and Watergate all happened within a ten-year span. Throw in the deaths of some of the major rock-stars (Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, Duane Allman and Jim Croce) in the early 70s and the hits just kept on comin'. A big cultural touchstone of the mid-60s that I left out was the Civil Rights Act, maybe the most important single event of that era. Make no mistake - the music played a big role in helping everyone survive that seemingly continuous $hitstorm, and even helped inform our moral responses to the madness. This is why the music from that period remains in the forefront of the memories of those who endured that particularly horrendous time-frame.