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.
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.
I haven’t been in my college station for a few years now (I broadcast remote still due to being immunocompromised), but that was a gem that I haven’t listened to in ages.
They had another promo release with a cover of “Girl U Want” by Devo that also kills.
