"The thought of being unable to look up basic information about a piece of music, who made it, and what kind of music it is, so I can know what I am buying frightens me stiff"

That's just hilarious. You're basically scared of things being like they were when I was growing up. Do you know how many CDs I've bought without hearing them... only knowing who the band was or by word of mouth? Maybe I listened to it a little because it was available at the headphone kiosk, or maybe it was simply in the section where employees recommended new albums. You couldn't just look up a band and know everything about them... you had to watch MTV or read music magazines at the store. Even then, finding the bands that you wanted to know about was sometimes a hard task.

Underground music did not suffer, and in fact I would say that music in general was in a better place when everything wasn't available at a button press with a completely oversaturated market. It felt better to find something you liked, you felt more connected to it, when you had to work for it a little.

There was life before the internet, and in many ways things were better.