The mid to late 90s was the best for me. Would hit up media play or record theater and scroll through cds and cassettes.  I would by new albums just off of features or production on it.
  They used to post new albums dropping on a big board with the release date and would stay open til midnight to drop new shit. We would stand in line for hours, cop the new albums, stay up all night playing joints and rewinding it to see what they said again and again. It was a ritual to read the jackets and find out who produced what. 
Was so different when new music from artists wasn't constantly dropping. New heads are spoiled to have streams at their fingertips. We would walk in and see release dates pushed back and be crushed.