That was a time of exponential improvement in the technology.Furthering your point on that, here's the 1954 recording of Elvis Presley's That's Alright (Mama), recorded at the modest Sun Records studio in Memphis. It's a classic, a groundbreaking song but compared to "Papa Was a Rolling Stone" of 20 years later, the technology available to Sam Phillips was far less advanced.
That said, with today's technology, I think the type of musicianship heard on the Elvis song and later with The Temptations too often is secondary to technical virtuosity. There's something basic and just plain "good" about the spartan sound of Presley and the straightforward playing of the band (The Tennessee Two?) not altered by autotune and the rest of the modern marvels.
There's something basic and just plain "good" about the spartan sound of Presley and the straightforward playing of the band (The Tennessee Two?) not altered by autotune and the rest of the modern marvels. For a long time, recording technology and artistic virtuosity were expanding in tandem. Somewhere in the late 80s - early 90s, it seemed that artistic expression and skill began to take a back seat to the fast developing technology side, and even began to fall off. Quite a bit, actually.
Over the decade of the 90s (and into the next century) the general quality of musicianship among top recording artists seemed to fall like a stone. Gone were the singers, players, and writers, who forged whole new genres, and pushed the boundaries of popular music to greater heights of excellence. In came the synthetic pop bands with their drum machines, sequenced loops, sampling, and soul-deadening rap 'music'.
Quality artists were pushed to the wayside, and know-nothing, talentless hacks were pushed to the front.
In my view, the forward march of degraded leftist ideals has much to do with the degradation we've witnessed in popular music over the last twenty years. It's an insidious contagion that infects and poisons everything it touches.