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
When I worked at an indie record shop in the early 90s I was an import buyer, and that album was only in print outside the US—I could not keep it in stock at $25++ a pop.
I worked in similar video store at turn of century. I basically took the job to have access to their massive collection of rarities that you couldn't find anywhere else, and I had absolutely waited years to see... and now it's all available on streaming!
Yeah, there’s a few things that are still elusive if you don’t own them physically (looking at you, Buckingham Nicks) but by and large I’ve found that nobody cares how many different color pressings of “Love Buzz” I own.
Ironically, I had countless opportunities to buy the Buckingham Nicks album as a cutout for like 99 cents, and I just… didn’t. Still not sure why. Regrets, I’ve had a few.
This is me with those quad (QUAD!) 8-tracks of Metal Machine Music I’d see in the dollar bin at Walgreens after the format phased out. (My Lou/VU epiphany would come shortly, but by then…)
In the 80s, just seeing something was on Slash records was enough to shell out a considerable sum of money. Odds were you never heard anything about the record at all. It could be Pogues, or Wreckless Eric, or Rachel Sweet or Lena Lovich. You had no idea what it would sound like or what genre.
I was a young punk/new wave devotee and found out about the indie record shop in town from a public radio station that played the music I liked
I would get my parents to drive me to the shop and have a HEAVENLY time browsing the stacks, and all the UK imports made me drool
So much weed smell!
Counterpoint, not intended to dispute your experience or the larger point: I was able to get that album as a used CD by 94 or so in the Twin Cities.
A few years earlier in the small Midwestern town I grew up in, it would have absolutely been impossible.
Oh no doubt, and there’s all kinds of reasons some things may have been more available regionally, esp with independent radio that didn’t all promote the same things in every city.
Yeah, we got tons of rare stuff in at the college radio station I DJ'd at, some of which was lifted by the staff and sold--although I don't believe this was that. (I wish I had been less honest in retrospect - there was a Soundgarden promotional Live EP I would give a surprising amount of money for.
Half the reason I was so excited to get my driver's license (late 90s) was because I grew up 100 miles away in Wisconsin, and I desperately needed to go record/comics shopping in Minneapolis more than once or twice a year. That really opened a whole new world for me.
No way my folks would have let me drive to the Cities a 100 miles farther and 10 years earlier. I didn't even really know what I was missing (except that it *was* missing) on the music side. We had a decent comics shop, although nothing like The Source. Coming to a large metro changed my life.
Hilariously, the hardest record for me to the hardest CD to find was a fairly recent album from a local band. I ended up finding the CD booklet at a shop and they said they'd call me if they ever found it. About 2 years later, they found it when they moved to a new building and actually called me!
Now that's customer service.
The DIY tapes and later CDs were the real hard-to-finds. I'm still kinda pissed at my college friend for borrowing then losing my Gneissmaker tape.
I worked at an indie record shop in the 90s and I stillhad to go to ANOTHER store to get an import copy of Best of Dexy's Midnight Runners because it was the only way to get Come on Eileen on CD.
I had a guy at another local shop on the lookout for years for a copy of the Replacements’ “Boink!” and it was such a great day when he came through for me. In return I always bought stuff from him at my store that we probably didn’t need, as a professional courtesy.
