Times have certainly changed.
Forty-one years ago (more or less) I was rifling through the racks at an out of the way and long defunct music store in Townsville when I encountered a mysterious unlabelled double album that turned out to be Blonde on Blonde.
Not long after that I started buying overseas music magazines which may have been two months out of date by the time they arrived at my friendly (and also long defunct) newsagent but gave me enough time to go asking about the new Jethro Tull single before it was released in Australia.
Around the same time we started getting Australian music magazines that were much more up-to-date but you still needed overseas sources if your tastes steered away from the mainstream.
Now, of course, I access music news from that inexhaustible fount of almost all wisdom, the internet, where you can learn about all sorts of events almost before they’ve happened.
Like album releases.
These days you hear about the forthcoming release from your favourite through the rumour mill almost before they’ve finished the actual recording.
And the fan reactions often make intriguing reading.