We grew up in an age of excited, roiling change in the music and film worlds, but the vicissitudes of the technologies and industries involved made the logistics of merely keeping up—much less being an expert—a time-consuming, expensive, and sometimes impossible chore. I won’t bore you with the details, but let me tell you—it was a drag.

Actually, I will bore you with the details. The music you wanted to hear wasn’t played on the radio and you couldn’t find the records you wanted to buy. You couldn’t even find the magazines that told you what records you should want to buy. It was almost impossible to see filmed footage of the artists you wanted to see.