Like take pink Floyd before dark side of the moon they were pretty unknown in America so how would a fan in America find out about there albums and stuff, same with king Crimson.
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The really hip kid in school with an older sibling. Or many of the kids at my art school. They seem to know all the obscure bands. Like how? I also grew up in the 90s and music stations really pushed indie and alternative.
Radio ads, newspaper ads (there were a lot more local papers back then), posters, flyers, marquee announcements, word of mouth.
The radio is how new bands became popular. Very close to everyone listened to radio and you only got a few stations to choose from so we all got exposed to the same music.
If you wanted more info you could go to almost any convenience store and choose from many magazines about music or pop culture.
The magazine Rolling Stone was much more of a big deal back in the day.
Either the band was big enough to be heard on the radio/mentioned in the press or it wasn’t and then you had to rely on other music fans to tell you about the band or just randomly stumble upon them. You could also ask around at the record store.
In general, before the internet people listened to fewer bands.
Word of mouth. I used to visit two record stores. They knew what I liked and would tell me about new bands and would let me listen if I wanted to. A little thing called customer service that you don’t find these days.
Other sources include hanging around in clubs talking to people about music, especially making friends with the DJ (when djs actually used a turntable and had a dozen boxes of records, and we’re quite happy to chat, rather than waving their hands in the air and twiddling knobs)
And then here was the music press. Weekly magazines with articles about bands, movements in music, interviews, reviews of records or gigs.
Finally, going to gigs, talking to bands, checking out flyers about gigs, listening to support bands you hadn’t heard of before
Payola. DJs would be bribed with cash and cocaine, and whoever paid the highest amount of bribes would get the most airtime and become the most popular artist. It really, really was as simple as that. If you want an incredibly fascinating podcast to show you just how much American music taste was influenced by corruption in the music industry, look up the podcast “American Scandal” and listen to their series on payola. It is a real eye opener, and beautifully made.
College radio stations played unpopular music.
You used to be able to buy magazines for $5-10 which also came with a 10-20 song list of random artists.
There was a time when lots of music was on MTV, and you could watch 120 Minutes and similar shows late at night to see unknown bands.
As others said, watching one band at a bar often meant you got to see 2 or 3 other opening acts.
I was always into what the artists I was listening to were into. I would watch interviews. Skate videos always had great songs. Music used to be a huge part of just hanging out too. We would all find new music to varying degrees and show it to each other.
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