Spacehead:
One must be careful...there are several things that the perspective of time gives to history. Two are: a forgiveness of sins, and a narrowing of scope.

Forgiveness of sins
I saw Jefferson Airplane, Cream, and an assortment of other such bands of the 60's in concert during that time. Such performances were almost invariably awful - a combination of technical problems, drugs, and the fact that live music failed to hide a host of musicianship ills. Crosby, Stills and Nash, even if they were sober (Nash usually was, the other two invariably weren't), were almost always desperately out of tune. The vabulous recordings from that era are equal parts genius, dumb luck, and good studio production.

Narrowing of scope
Music stations that thrive on the reprising ad nauseum of 60's music play probably about 2 or 3% of the bands and material that was getting air play then. There was a lot of trash. The older an era gets, the more the bad stuff gets relegated to the dustbin, and so the "golden era" seems a lot more golden than it really was.

As hard as it is for me to acknowledge, the era in which we currently reside may, indeed, take on a "golden" tinge from the distance of 40 years or so - though, frankly, I doubt it, and I'm quite glad I won't be around to witness it if I'm wrong . . .

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"The problem with the world is that the ignorant are cock-sure, whereas the intelligent are full of doubt." - Bertrand Russell