lindsmuse That thing of waiting for them to play it on the radio V8! - and then them playing ads before and then hearing your PRECIOUS MUSIC! Amazing to think that we were still battling to get our good stuff with great difficulty from overseas in the time of The Smashing Pumpkins
101% - waiting for it to get some airplay made it feel special. This instant gratification comes with a down side - anything, anytime sounds good...but is that anticipation is the secret sauce?
iirc, it was around 1991/2 that I had that album on pre-order. Only commercial/mainstream things got pressed locally so importing for more obscure things was the only way. And they were still kinda obscure then (before the batman soundtrack :p)
I havn't listened to radio or watched terrestrial tv in a rather long time. It's all internet channels - soundcloud's recommendations suit me, youtube has some great jazz and very occasionally facebook serves up something palatable. On the rare occasion it's spotify and bandcamp - but I usually end up there because a mate sent me a link/recommendation.