Guest:
On January 9th, 1949; RCA Victor produced the first 45 rpm record. I remember having to search high and low, at times for the 45 I was looking for. If you loved the song after hearing it on the radio, buying the single was the only way to get just the one song without shelling out for the whole album. The one song, in most cases was the only good song on that album anyway.
I had many adventures searching for all of my 45s, and after finding it, I had such a feeling of accomplishment and pride. Ya don't have that any more with Alexa and all the streaming apps.