> it is a small subset of what they were actually listening to back then.
I think there was also more variation on that than there is now. Music cost a fair amount of money to buy so what you heard as a kid depended on what people around you were spending hundreds of dollars on, and radio stations were far more diverse in the era before ClearChannel bought everything and consolidated onto a handful of choices. My wife and I had relatively similar suburban upbringings in many ways but there are a ton of 80s and 90s bands I was more familiar with because I happened to live within range of two different college radio stations at different points, and she basically had only very big commercial options.
There’s still variety these days but I think it’s undercut a lot because every teenager with a smartphone has access to pretty much anything, and the social media pressure to like the big names has never been stronger.
I think there was also more variation on that than there is now. Music cost a fair amount of money to buy so what you heard as a kid depended on what people around you were spending hundreds of dollars on, and radio stations were far more diverse in the era before ClearChannel bought everything and consolidated onto a handful of choices. My wife and I had relatively similar suburban upbringings in many ways but there are a ton of 80s and 90s bands I was more familiar with because I happened to live within range of two different college radio stations at different points, and she basically had only very big commercial options.
There’s still variety these days but I think it’s undercut a lot because every teenager with a smartphone has access to pretty much anything, and the social media pressure to like the big names has never been stronger.