The more time that you spend with a particular form of artistic expression - music in this case - the more likely it is that you'll eventually come to a conclusion something like this one: Art doesn't improve over time, as opposed to science or medicine for example, and we can't say with any certainty that today's musicians are creating music that is more advanced, or that contains more emotional impact than, say, Bach did. And the more that we listen to earlier music, the more apparent this truth becomes. Artists of any time period are faced with the same problem (or challenge, if you prefer): to convert their experiences into something lasting. So while it is true that artists as individuals improve with time, in terms of technical proficiency and so on, art itself doesn't. That's my opinion, anyway, and to illustrate the point, here is one of the greatest of country songs: Don Gibson's "Oh Lonesome Me", recorded in 1958 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJ6JVkLcibM).