i say the 70's is the greatest era in music, period
the 80's had some electrifyin' moments with stevie's "hotter than july" album, prince, michael, marvin's comeback, zapp and roger, babyface/the deele, bruce springsteen, fishbone, sonic youth, janet jackson, living colour, r.e.m., shalamar, metallica, cameo (started in the 70's but really got it crackin' in the 80's) whitney houston, kate bush and quite a few others
but that 70's era was somethin' else with artists like james brown, sly and the family stone, parliament funkadelic, fleetwood mac, pink floyd, curtis mayfield, barry white, al green, jimi hendrix, bob marley, motown in the 70's (from stevie to marvin and everyone else in between), aretha franklin, the doobie brothers, the staple singers, glady's knight and the pips, bobby womack, bill withers, santana, the meters, the last poets, the beatles, the ohio players, black sabbath, led zeppelin and the list goes on and on and on
now quite a few of ^these^ "70s" acts i listed obviously got started in the 60's and some even further back but many came to be into their own or had even more major success in the 70's
lemme put it like this though, hip hop added somethin' new and fresh and kept the ball rollin' though along with new jack swing (which had hip hop roots and elements in it's sound) kept things fresh
hip hop was somethin' new and freshin' because at the time; it was rebellious, authentic (even though it was built off bitin' from samples lol), and so against the grain of everythin' else that it really just bought somethin' new to the table
