Well, I was astounded by this, but only for a minute.
It's been what, 4 generations? In today's instant force feeding music generation, there's not any real sense of history.
Why would there be? They don't have to look for anything. Their music is brought right to their doorstep with TV, PCs, etc. The instant it becomes available, boom, they have it without ever leaving their chair.
You can't really lay
all the blame on the listeners. The way they get their music is as much (probably more so) the industrie's fault. Right here, right now.
There probably is an element of laziness involved, wherein people accept the music that is dropped in front of them. And that's good enough for them.
If they had to go out of the house to get their music, actually do a little leg work, they might not be so easily placated.
I know when I was a kid, a trip to the record store didn't end when I got the record I went there to get. Heck, you spent time in the record store. You looked around.
Flipped a bunch of records over and read the back of the album. Checked out artwork.
You looked at albums of bands you were only mildy interested in, like I was with Fleetwood Mac. Check out the album anyway. Yup, Stevie Nicks, still fine as frog's hair.
You looked in the display case to see if Aero had a new patch for your jean jacket. See if there was a new Nugent poster.
You couldn't helped but be exposed to more than you came for. Instead of looking at a little screen, at a record store, you were literally surrounded by sights and sounds of anything and everything musical. The music playing in the store is an aphrodisiac you can't get if you're sitting in a chair shopping, looking at one thing at a time on a PC screen.
Heck, just writing this and remembering those trips makes me want to go music shopping.