This is why stores would let you listen to it before purchasing
And that’s why there were secondhand CD shops.
And thats why we still had cassette decks that could record from CDs you borrowed from your buddies/public library.
I remember getting an early CD burner in 1998 for like $350 it was awesome
Yea I remember when people would just stand around the headphone booths in music stores and sample whatever new CDs came out that week. Maybe it was worse in the cassette tape era?
The headphones were gross. And to be honest, most albums only have a couple good songs anyway.
It was always like that, wasnt it? Albums would have that one headline track that everyone wanted and then 7 bullshit tracks and one or two tracks that kinda sounded like the good track, as if they were the discarded parts that they decided to cut and stitch into a song to fill up the cd.
I remembered I had a friend who couldn’t have any albums with swearing and I’d read the lyrics insert for him to check for swearing while he listed to a few tracks
Well, the good ones did.
Wasn’t 1999 the peak of the price gouging from the record labels? It was like $20-25 for a new album for a ton of the major record labels from what I remember.
Yes, albums weren’t $10, even on small labels. We were dropping $20+ hoping for the best. In some cases convincing ourselves it was good, just because we spent so much on it.
My budget for CDs maxed out at $16. After that, I had to moved to Napster.
I’m pretty sure I owe my career in computers to the high seas. Napster led to irc, which led to the endless rabbit hole of many a sleepless night in the chat rooms of the 90s.
I remember destinys child’s survivor album was $40+
$10? That’s a steal.
One of the last times I just straight up bought a full CD was 1999
Mr Bungle. California. $18
Still one of the best purchases ever, though
In 1999 I was borrowing my rich friends discs and copying them to CD-R for the most part.
1999 CDs were typically $20 - $30 so it was actually worse. This was what you would pay at a Sam Goody, Camelot Music, FYE etc.
It wasn’t until a few years later that CD prices were cheaper. You could go to Wal-Mart and get cheaper prices, but you would be buying censored or edited albums.
I remember the Wal-Mart release of Eminem’s second album was missing the entire song of Kim for example, just completely replaced.
I think a lot of people who post about the nineties weren’t spending their own money or something, because I remember how pricey music was, and cherished each CD.
I still have some of my CDs from the nineties.
And to add to that, something that used to cost $20 in 1995 dollars costs $40 in 2023 dollars.
No the average price of CDs in the 90s was about $15 and they were on sale regularly for $10-12 in some places.
I bought about 400 CDs in the 90s and still have them.
Cool, but definitely not my experience growing up. You could get those prices sometimes at Wal-Mart but CDa would be edited or censored, and I grew up in an area where there were no standalone CD or Record stores, so all I saw and had access to was mall stores like Camelot Music, FYE, or Sam Goody.
The prices I’m referencing were 100% accurate for my time of reference, which was the bulk of the nineties.
Only towards the end, like literal turn of the century late 1999 into 2000 did things actually start to change.
I promise this is true.
I used a cassette player until 2002!
I don’t even feel like that’s strange, I had lots of cassettes and a casette player in my car until 2015 or so
Yeah you can’t really censor Kim lol. At least it was replaced with a new song (a South-Park-parody drug-PSA for kids) and not something from the first album.
And to add to that, something that used to cost $20 in 1995 dollars costs $40 in 2023 dollars.
And to add to that, something that used to cost $20 in 1995 dollars costs $40 in 2023 dollars.
I think streaming makes music a “throwaway” product.
I well and fondly remember when a new album of my favorite band came out and I met friends at the music store to listen and buy it from my saved pocket money. And I still habe most of these albums… and I still listen to them… all though they live on my music players hdd permanently
Streaming allowed me to discover 1700 songs that I love. It gave me the opportunity to enjoy countless genres. Now I export my liked songs to a spreadsheet so I never lose them. I wouldn’t be able to do that otherwise. It’s done great things for my music listening.
what.cd’s (RIP) big music spider tree was that for me. Artist I like? At the the bottom of the page, a buncha of others like them.
Music streaming is just … Objectively better for everybody. Small bands can be heard, hence the indy scene booming so hard, consumers can access their content anywhere there’s internet.
I think you miss the ritual around getting physical media and having a session where you just sit back and listen to the album for the first time. You could try to replicate it, but I think child-like wonder was the main ingredient ;)
There’s still good stuff out there. You just have to dig deeper, take risks, and you have to make the conscious decision to give it an active listen from front to back.
Right? There are artists who still care about the album format. King Gizz was one of those gems I discovered that I wouldn’t have otherwise. They’re constantly dropping new thematic albums worth listening to. And you can buy vinyl from many artists these days if you want a physical copy.
I really don’t miss the days when we paid more money for a significantly more inconvenient way of listening to SIGNIFICANTLY less diverse music on much shittier devices.
I absolutely agree. I quit the streaming services and now put the money towards purchasing media I actually care about.
Where were you getting albums from popular bands/artists for $10 in '99? That shit was approaching $20 or more when Napster finally took care of those assholes.
At Fye in 1999 CDs were $19.95 plus tax where I grew up.
For sure, typically ranging from $15 - $20
Growing up in the early 2000s I always borrowed CDs from the library and learned how to burn them on my own CDs.
I had a friend with a CD player/tape player boombox and rich parents, he would copy the CDs to tapes so I could listen to them.
Cranberries burned me hard. I bought their second album because “Zombie” fucking rocked. The rest of the album is stuff like “Ode to my Family” and “Dreaming my Dreams”!
It did eventually grow on me, but I was so disappointed.
Bought The Pixies album around that time too, only listened to it because I’d paid for it. Still pisses me off when I hear one of the tracks
Pixies are so good though?
I don’t miss the times when I had to use my headphones as an antena for radio, as I couldn’t buy music.
Back when i had an xperia phone it actually was able to pick up radio with headphones connected, had an app for it
I had a pair of headphones with an actual built-in radio. I thought I was hot shit. It was the mid-90s and I was probably 10-ish.
Were they also yellow like mine?
Nah, classic late 90s metallic gray.
What was used for file sharing in 1999? IRC, Napster or something else?
I used Napster and Limewire at that time, I believe. But like other commenters have said - 20 bucks in 1999 is the equivalent to $36 or so today. And we did that without being able to pre-listen.
I actually threw Metallica’s St. Anger out the window on the drive home from the record store I was so upset. I’d had a horrible day and everything kept going wrong, even small things. I drove 45 minutes North to the nearest record store, had to walk back out to my car for change (I didn’t have enough cash) and after the first few songs I started to get this pit in my stomach and I just fucking lost it. Rolled the window down at 65mph and threw that thing as hard as I could. And we had very little money at the time. Good times…
Is it because Lars’ drumming sounded like a skeleton masturbating in a file cabinet?
That’s beautiful, it’s like poetry.
Napster was released exactly in 1999, and before that IRC groups were active since the 80’s
Listening stations were LIFE!!!
As a kid in the 2000s I got the yearly now that’s what I call music album then listened to those 16-18 songs for the rest of the year or the radio. Until limewire.
lmao what a fucking trip back in time. I had a couple of those albums myself. I remember seeing the commercials with all the kids singing the songs
Funnily enough, they still make them, both on steaming platforms and on CDs, swear to god there’s one on my nearest Tesco’s shelf
commercials with all the kids singing the songs
I think that was Kids Bop, which is essentially Now That’s What I Call Music, but kids were covering the songs instead of the actual band
Ah right you are. Shows how long all this was
Here we had Big Shiny Tunes
#2 being the best of the bunch, imho. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ns0UidyZH2k
Anyone else remember the mail order CD services like Columbia house and bmg? I probably still owe them like a grand lmao.
I signed up for some BMG deal where you get 12 CDs if you buy one. They sent me the one but I never paid them (I was 9). They sent my family a letter demanding money but we never paid. Suckers!
No body paid for them. You get two or three sets of tapes/CDs and never looked back. I’m surprised that lasted as long as it did lol
Yeah I joined Columbia House once upon a time and did manage to complete the minimum obligation. Honestly it wasn’t a bad deal. Album prices kept going up around that time so the initial 10 albums I got when joining would have cost me a lot more than I ended up paying in total.
Oh wow I completely forgot about these
I’m just not ready for that kind of commitment.
For sure, Spotify is convenient but you own nothing and you locked with a subscription. Also, you listen what they propose. What happens if your favorite band become removed from their library?
I still buy few albums and keep my library of audio files. (And I get some album for free using the same methods we used back in the days 😏)
You own nothing and you locked with a subscription
Who cares if I only pay 10€ a month but can access 80 million songs. Back then 10€ bought you 75% of an album and you were forced to listen to it until you started hating it.
You listen what they propose
First of this is not necessary a bad thing. The algorithm can propose music you like not music that’s popular. You have to train it by making your own choices which - SUPRISE - is also what we did back than. People were influenced by MTV but at the end it was your decision what you listen to just like these days. You literally only have to enter the name of any album into the search bar. Back then the retailer did the preselection for you and only put CDs on display that would sell.
What happens when you favorite band gets removed from their library
Rarely happens because these days when you as an artist are not on the streaming services you might as well not exist at all.
The way you access music just isn’t comfortable to most people including me.
My music taste is always changing. I like listening to new (to me) music, not the same albums over and over. I much prefer spotify over buying albums
You can do it without Spotify as well.
My point is, using downloaded album, you are sure to retreive what you listened X years ago.
The only songs that have ever been removed from my library (Spotify shows you) are remixes/mashups where the person doing it never had permission.
Not really sure what you mean by you listen to what they propose? You search what you want, follow other people, listen to playlists you or other people have made.
I mean they could have some arrists they don’t want to be on spotify. It already happened.
Don’t think that list is totally accurate. Listening to Norwegian Wood as I type this.
Unfortunately I have seen OSTs, albums and even a single song in an otherwise fully available album removed from Spotify, but it is indeed very inusual.
Bandcamp is the answer.
You can still buy music digitally these days
There are ways to enjoy most of Spotifys ‘Premium Features’ withiut paying. And for the Artist I like I buy a physical copy, because I like having something to put in my shelf. Also it helps the Artists more than listening on Spotify
Diskman? When I was young I had this one, copying the music from the Radio and from my vinilos on the turnable… Much later an cassette player in a Ghetto Blaster.
Suck to be you. I was too broke for a discman. I had a portable cassette player I bought in Tijuana that played just a little too fast and stacks of bootleg cassettes I bought from the dude with a huge briefcase of them out back behind the church on Sunday.
There was probably a small hole in the back of your Walkman. Behind it was a slot you could turn with a screwdriver to adjust the speed.
This would work for a few years until the motor commutator would go a bit dodgy.
