The later you start something, the "better" you will be at it due to tech advancement, as well as knowing it is possible to do something due to others breaking walls. This is why comparing eras in a given domain is not something you can really do properly, as it is relevant to what was available to them at their given time. If you took whoever was considered the best at whatever the thing is, and change their birthdate to whatever adds up to be such that they are doing whatever the thing is at a previous generations time, their skill would align within the scope of others of the time. They would not be "as good" as their future self would be, even if they had that capibility on a physical level. Of course, since age exists, you cant simply wait to start something until it becomes easier to get good at it. You have to work within whatever confines are present for your time period, and perhaps, progress it however much you can for those who will be better then you, through no fault of their own. Mainly these principles apply to things like sports or breaking records, but this works inversely aswell, as there can be lost techniques or arts that in the realm of say, design or video, give something a unique look that would be much harder to do today due to the lower ubiquity of certain things. (analog vs digital, certain looks that are much harder to do today then would have been previously easier to do since, there was no other way.) Of course you can look back to the past, but certain things are no longer made, and can only be matched through imitation. A common example could be what I refer to as innate quality vs technical quality. Just because something is high resolution, doesnt mean it is "better". Computers from back in 2005, 480p was considered good. Those who produced video in such a era, their PCs ran just as slow as ours do now, the difference is the magnitude in which the work is done. (ease of access increasing as well, programs also improving to make it faster to do certain things, but even with ease of access increasing, it just makes the pool wider.) Nowadays 1080p is going out of fashion, 2k being a soft new standard, 4k being seen as high end. back then these numbers would be different, but the general speed of work would be the same. So technical level is something that will passively increase overtime due to how technology develops. innate quality is something that trancends time. This is the quality of the work it self, relative to its time period, but still never really looses its luster. This is due to the work itself being good unrelated to its technical quality, or even, boosted by its "lower" technical quality that gives it character. The best of these things tend to be ahead of their time in some way. a good example that not only fits the description perfectly, but the topic of the song is even about that very thing. is the song "I Just Wasnt Made For These Times" on Pet Sounds, written by Brian Willson. Particularly that wood block sound that is used in such a way that makes it sound like a sample or something. Those who are ahead of their time maximized everything available to them at the given time to a point of it not seeming of the era, but rather contained by it.