It took effort and initiative to find good new music in the ’80s and ’90s. FM radio in and around Youngstown, Ohio was … unadventurous. New wave videos had rocked our worlds through our early teens, but at some point in the mid-1980s the record industry found its footing and moved to colonize MTV, so that by end of the decade the network’s waking hours were given over entirely to SoCal hair metal, R&B song-and-dance acts, and mid-career Madonna—when they were showing videos at all. In those days there were of course no algorithms to lead you gently from Songs You Liked to More Songs You Might Like. Shazam wasn’t parked on your phone to tell you what you were hearing over the PA system in the café.
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The Boo Radleys, "Lazarus"
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It took effort and initiative to find good new music in the ’80s and ’90s. FM radio in and around Youngstown, Ohio was … unadventurous. New wave videos had rocked our worlds through our early teens, but at some point in the mid-1980s the record industry found its footing and moved to colonize MTV, so that by end of the decade the network’s waking hours were given over entirely to SoCal hair metal, R&B song-and-dance acts, and mid-career Madonna—when they were showing videos at all. In those days there were of course no algorithms to lead you gently from Songs You Liked to More Songs You Might Like. Shazam wasn’t parked on your phone to tell you what you were hearing over the PA system in the café.