Absolutely. The worst part of the 90s-00s was the number of bands who had that mentality, largely pushed by the record companies. Napster and then Bearshare were amazing. I still bought a lot of CDs (hello Columbia House and BMG! And the used bins of course) and went to a ton of concerts to support artists, but I got to check stuff out early and pass on a lot of crap that way.
I still bought the occasional CD at Best Buy or Target, but they were still $12 or 13. That was still a lot for music discovery. I was always amazed when shopping at the mall at Sam Goody or Disc Jockey and they wanted $19.99 for CDs. That's about $35 now with inflation.
Same. I would go browse those stores and wonder how the hell they stayed in business being so much higher.
www.last.fm
We used to buy pretty much every new release on Tuesdays at Best Buy - CDs and DVDs - and then realized we were wasting a ton of money on stuff we'd never listen to. I can remember it used to take 20+ minutes to download a single song through certain services, then broadband finally became available in my area. Oink was the best, and I recall Trent Reznor admitting that he was a member there after it finally got taken down.
I'd log on at night and go all night hoping that it wouldn't glitch or time out. Could usually get five to ten songs a night.
My buddy who lived down the street was lucky enough to have multiple phone lines in his house, so we would download movies for days on end without being interrupted by calls. Always a good day when one finished and it wasn't a shitty handycam rip or porn.
Too much Father John Misty will do that
