No major wars or depressions, no National Service, free University education, too young for the crap early 70's to be a real bother (3 day week etc) but old enough to fuel a healthy scepticism that I was the perfect age for when punk and then new wave hit the streets.

If you weren't 16 in 1976, you weren't really there.

My father was born in March 1942.

He was 14 when Heartbreak Hotel came out, nearly 17 when Buddy Holly died, 21 when Beatlemania hit and 23 when Bob Dylan went electric. At the age of 27, no doubt Woodstock seemed a little silly. As far as he was concerned, all the really exciting stuff was over by the time he was 30.

and I got to see Supertramp at Earls Court in 1983 so that'll do me.

Aged 11 when the Beatles came to prominence, 19 when they split. They soundtracked my adolescence. Is it any wonder I rate them as highly as I do?

I was at university during the early 70s - just the right age to appreciate progressive rock and 'proper' rock (Free, Zeppelin, Pie etc) together with the singer-songwriter stuff coming out of Laurel Canyon.

I was 25 when punk happened, just the right age to enjoy the music whilst having the experience to see through the more outrageous claims made about its originality and significance.

I'm quite happy with 1952 :-)

The best is always yet to come.

so around '75, '76 I was exposed to a lot of great rock/prog/songwriters by my older brother, just as I was getting old enough to appreciate them. Great bands and artists were still releasing albums as well as having a decent back-catalogue to explore. I also enjoyed the punk/new wave explosion despite being more of a rock fan.

Apart from music, stuff like property prices, disposable income etc. my parents definitely had it better as they could buy a decent house, run two cars, take holidays etc on their modest income. Household goods are incredibly cheap now, but overall people seem to work much harder in less secure jobs for, at the end of the day, less money. But I think property prices are the main thing that keeps us skint these days.

Having said that, we have cheap international travel, better technology, more medical advances, better food, etc etc. and I don't believe there was ever a golden age. So my birth year is fine with me!

I'm reading the recent award winning book about Mao's Great Famine. So if you're born in China between 1958 and 1961 you were in for a pretty rough time: starvation, disease and being turned into fertiliser. That's if your mum had the energy to deliver you while she was suffering from malnutrition and probably beatings because she didn't work hard enough to grow rice or build a dam.

Personal polemic against Maoist socialism finished. To address the question:

I was born in 1965 and I sometimes I wish I was born a few years earlier becase I didn't really discover music until the late 70s and most of what I listened too after that was recorded well before then. I was also too young to see any of the major acts on tour in the 70s. Indeed, I often think I was born out of time because I quickly got fed up with the 80s scene and retreated into metal and guitar oriented rock as a refuge and pure escapism. I can see myself now at the age of 15 in 1980, headphones on in the bedroom pretending to do my homework but actually learning every lyric and lick on Led Zeppelin IV and Rainbow Rising.

On the other hand I benefitted from a state education and, as a working class lad, got to university on a full grant, earning myself a BA in History and subsequently a reasonably interesting career and lots of travel. Had I been born earlier, or indeed say 10 years later, the dice may have rolled the other way.

I was born in 1962: a bit late to get into punk properly (although I tried). Also had to cope with being at University during the crappest part of the 1980s (from a musical and political perspective). Now in the forefront of recessionary fear -- could I get another job if they made me redundant? I don't think being born in 1960 would be sufficient distance from this experience to justify it being the best year.

On the other hand, my father was born in 1939 (and in September, oddly enough -- although the war had already started by then). He got the benefit of a free University education, albeit before the major expansion in the mid- to late-60s. On the other hand, he had to cope with redundancy twice in the 1970s. My guess is that had he been a touch younger at that stage, he would have been better placed either not to lose his job or to find a new one more quickly than he did.

Thinking further ahead, I suspect that pensioners are never going to be as well off again as they are now (I know they aren't especially well off now, but these things are relative). As the youngest pensioners (male, at any rate) were born in the late 1940s, and would have had the full benefit of the Welfare State during their lives, combined with the flourishing of popular music during the 1960s and 70s, with children typically born in the 1970s (and who could therefore be amongst the last to get a state-funded period at University), are probably the best-off generation in the 20th century.

My Dad was born in July 1948.

Young enough to have missed the worst of rationing, old enough to go through the entire 60's and early 70's and the cultural events of the time. Two kids, nice houses, lived in west London until 1996, nice easy career path in the public sector and a whacking great final salary pension and a lump sum.

Received the benefits of a full NHS, house price bubble and the beneficial parts of consumerism that Thatcher begat.

All the baby boomers experienced the very best of peaceful, prosperous western civilisation.

All downhill here on in.

That way, I'd have got to have experienced everything I think I've missed.