New songs
The whole idea of music on demand is wonderful. Particularly for someone who grew up when I did. Yes there was new music even then but the access was so limited. Essentially for someone living in a small town the local radio station played music for the youth over a two hour period each evening complete with commercials. Other than that you were on your own. And the music that was played was very limited. When you hear the expression Top 40 that actually meant something. There was another little note. That two hours of new music happened between 7:00 and 9:00 in the evening. Concurrent with primetime television. You had a choice. You could listen for new songs or watch new programs on TV. A limited number of programs and there was also a lot of commercial time. We all knew the ads. If you decided to watch TV then you did not stay up to date on the latest music. When the subject would come up at the lunchtime table you were out in left field. Talking about the most recent western program or the most recent detective program just did not have the same appeal. And if you wanted to own new music you had to spend almost all of your available money. Those little 45 RPM records were worth a couple of hours of salary. A brand new LP was more akin to a week’s wages for those of us that worked after school. It definitely limited access. For those of you who can now turn on your satellite receiver and have the channel of your choice I doubt that you realize just how fortunate you are to live in this period of history. We would have killed literally for something like YouTube.
