i hate to have one of these at all but my big "WE DRANK FROM THE HOSE" opinion is that people younger than millennials really can't imagine what coming of age in a time of media scarcity meant - like, I would read about records and movies and not actually be able to see them for YEARS
like, at one point I heard of "Rum, Sodomy and the Lash" by the Pogues, and I went to my local independent record store - ALREADY more than most people had - but there was some problem with their distributor so it took me six months and cost me $25 to listen to one relatively well known album
...and though MTV is kind of a punchline now, for those of us that grew up in towns without college radio or indie radio or whatever shows like 120 Minutes, Alternative Nation, Headbanger's Ball, etc. allowed us exposure to stuff we never would've heard otherwise. Game changer.
The extra struggle of being an electronic music fan, hearing a dope track on MTV'S "AMP", and then trying to find it only to learn the version I heard was a remix, or video edit, MTV would never say that, the album version is wildly different, and it may not even be on some kind of physical media...
...AND EVEN THEN, finding the genres I liked at all was a motherfucker because it would all be shoved together in the "Dance" section, which was never that big. Aphex Twin, Dieselboy, The Venga Boys, Atari Teenage Riot, Paul Oakenfold, Underworld, Eiffel65, DJ Rap, all on the same little shelf.
I used to order a lot of obscure albums from local record stores and the clerk would always say stuff like, "If you don't like this, we probably won't buy it back because it'll sit here forever" lol
