i know everyone has an opinion....and im from that era...but has there ever been a greater overall era in pop music then the 70;s??

Not yet !!!

Depending on your definition of "greater"...

The "Tin Pan Alley" era (turn of the century, 1800-1900)produced hundreds more popular music songs than the 70s ever thought of...

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Tin+Pan+Alley&btnG=Google+Search

Where the 70s was gimicky, the Tin Pan Alley era was ultra-productive as far as the sheer number of bang-for-the-buck songs produced.

By the 1970s, the creativity of modern chord progressions had come to a screeching halt, and nearly every song contained the I, IV, V chord progressions and some form of electric guitar playing power chords through a high gain amp and presenting lead solos utilizing only the pentatonic scale.

Compared to the Tin Pan Alley era of song writing, the 1970s were rather boring in that each new song was most likely a carbon copy of the last song and was driven only by what the record companies dictated and could be sold over the airwaves or in the record store.

Instead of sharing true creativity and something new, 70s music most times became a clone of the artist or group that had previously been popular.

One of the reasons Eddie Van Halen was so popular at the end of the 70s and into the 80s was because he refused to be a clone, and forged his own creative style... which... by 1989, had been cloned to death by all of the 1980s Big Hair music guitar players... I'd have to nominate the 1980s for being one of the most boring eras on the elctric guitar in the history of the instrument. Lot's of energy,power chords and dweedle-dweedle-dweedles... but very little variance from the status quo.

I think creativity went right to the pooper in the Big Hair era, and now folks are wonder what happened to music, as we suffer through the rap and hip-hop era of music dominating the popular music of today.

If any guitarist wants a true challenge, go grab a 1,000 page Tin Pan Alley fake book, and concentrate on learning jazz chords and jazz chord progressions. You'll find a near infinite basis and outlet to as much creativity as you want to spend time learning about.

I think the deceptive factor of the 70s was that we had the TV and the radio to broadcast the music out onto... but an honest observation of the chord progressions and improvised solos, and the 70s was basically I, IV, V... and the 5-note pentatonic scale that Clapton, Page, Nugent, etc. used to form their solos. After Eddie Van Halen hit, there was a rusg to the store to find out what classical scales were about, then probably one of the worst-ever clone periods in the history of mankind.

Tin Pan Alley stands head and shoulders above, creating song after song after song.