You buy the CD because they had a charting single on radio, you’re than disappointed that the rest of the album is a different sound.
Not everyone had internet in the 90s-00s either mate……
Then you keep listening to it anyways, and it slowly becomes one of your favourite albums of all time.
We call that justifying your purchase. You forced yourself into liking it so you didn’t “waste” the money.
Haha, definitely a possibility!
I think there’s also an element of the hit tracks often being a bit more formulaic. There’s a big component of familiarity in music that makes it appealing, so people might not appreciate the more experimental tracks on an album until they’ve heard them a few times.
Sugar Ray surprised many people by being a punk band that had a pop song or two.
Did you miss the whole “you could test listen to the CD in the shop” part?
Nope, not every place had the money to burn on a cd in a jukebox from every artist. Also standing there for 45 minutes to listen to the entire thing? Who actually does that?
Also standing there for 45 minutes to listen to the entire thing? Who actually does that?
Me. It was me. I was 14. I listened to the whole thing. I think the name of the store was “The Warehouse” and maybe another was called “Good Guys”? But yeah. Both. I’d take the bus to the mall and sit on that raggedy ass carpet that smelled like a movie theater floor and listened to the whole damn album. All of them actually (usually like 6-8 per station?) until the manager told me to leave. A couple times clerks would hook me up with burned demos.
But yeah. It was me.
You’re not wrong, but there were definitely people who spent tons of time listening to music at the record store.
There were actual listening stations with headphones here in Germany at certain media chains. Some people spent whole afternoons in there.
But yeah, the opposite did exist. I remember, when I was a teenager friends got a dozen or more CDs for their birthday. Good old 1998.
