“If you wanted to discover new music, the last thing you'd do is turn to the radio”
Really? What would people do, then?
I grew up in the 70s/80s in a small town. No music store, not even a Walmart until the mid-80s.
Pre-MTV, radio was pretty much the only mechanism for hearing new music, excepting maybe small doses of new stuff via SNLs musical act or someone on the talk shows.
I don’t think much (popular) contemporary music is genre-less. Fair number of crossover songs, maybe, but that’s not new.
Also, college radio (non-profit, staffed by student and community volunteers, usually at the low end of the FM dial) was a great place to be exposed to wide variety. In fact, record companies used to (and to some extent maybe still do) provide promo copies of many new releases to college radio and depended on feedback to fashion their marketing.
Really? What would people do, then?
I grew up in the 70s/80s in a small town. No music store, not even a Walmart until the mid-80s.
Pre-MTV, radio was pretty much the only mechanism for hearing new music, excepting maybe small doses of new stuff via SNLs musical act or someone on the talk shows.
I don’t think much (popular) contemporary music is genre-less. Fair number of crossover songs, maybe, but that’s not new.