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Originally Posted by tesla69
In 1985 for music there were 3 weekly newspapers coming out of London, plus several monthlies. Rolling Stone was the monthly standard for corporate music out of the US. Across the US there were hundreds of DIY music fanzines, including standouts like MRR, Flipside, Suburban Voice, Unsound, Boston Rock, Terminal, Trendy Rag, etc. Both MRR and Flipside had cheap classified ads and there could be 100's in a single issue. There was a lot of corresponding and trading going on. In the US, college radio had hit its apex, but most places around the country near a college could hear some different music. I think most commercial FM radio had closed up by 1985, there were a few exceptions - like Oedipus' Nocturnal Emissions on WBCN in Boston. Downtown Portsmouth NH, which was the largest town near me, had 2 record stores, Rock Bottom was the new wave punk store, across the street was I think Sessions that had a wall of the top 100 singles all available. I used to meet up with Alex Barr(who nowadays sings for the Dropkick Murphies) at Rock Bottom to talk about punk rock. You could also go out to the mall to Musicsmith and sometimes find stuff in their cut outs or import bins. The biggest deal was to go into Boston to buy records. I used to buy lots of singles by writing to the addresses at the end of the best sounding MRR reviews.
Those were good times, Mortte. I don't think we will see the like again. I shouldn't be so pessimistic. But when I looked at a fanzine in 1985, no one was tracking how much time I spent reading a page. No one was slipping me cookies to record and track my listening habits when I inserted a cassette into my walkman. When we slam danced there was no one live streaming us into our parent's dens.
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It was very different in the beginning of eighties in Finland. There were only two radio channels, three television channels and only one seriously taken music magazine. You just couldn´t hear alternative bands anywhere, all you heard are those plastic 80ties commercial sounds. But gladly it changed when speedmetal boom came in the end of eighties (I think it was 86 or 87), then there started also big alternative wave in Finland that lasted into begin of nineties. Many independet records were made and alternative magizines borned. So to me the beginning of eighties was quite boring time, but the end of it and also the whole nineties was good time.
I agree mostly you the sickness of today´s internet, but anyway I am glad I can find there so much great old music I haven´t ever heard before. And you can always choose not to be a part of it at least not so much as most of today´s people just want to be.