It’s hard to convey to a young fan raised in an age of streaming how much we listened over and over again to the same records back in those days. Most of us couldn’t afford to buy many albums, so the ones we did own got lots of use. Even records I didn’t enjoy got second chances—and third chances and fourth chances, and so on—to win my allegiance. To reject an album after you bought it was like writing off a capital investment.

The Honest Broker, How Paul Winter Created a Music Beyond Category, 12/12/2021. By Ted Gioia

Ted Gioia describes perfectly the pre-internet album listening practice.