1999 CDs were typically $20 - $30 so it was actually worse. This was what you would pay at a Sam Goody, Camelot Music, FYE etc.
It wasn't until a few years later that CD prices were cheaper. You could go to Wal-Mart and get cheaper prices, but you would be buying censored or edited albums.
I remember the Wal-Mart release of Eminem's second album was missing the entire song of Kim for example, just completely replaced.
I think a lot of people who post about the nineties weren't spending their own money or something, because I remember how pricey music was, and cherished each CD.
Cool, but definitely not my experience growing up. You could get those prices sometimes at Wal-Mart but CDa would be edited or censored, and I grew up in an area where there were no standalone CD or Record stores, so all I saw and had access to was mall stores like Camelot Music, FYE, or Sam Goody.
The prices I'm referencing were 100% accurate for my time of reference, which was the bulk of the nineties.
Only towards the end, like literal turn of the century late 1999 into 2000 did things actually start to change.
Yeah you can't really censor Kim lol. At least it was replaced with a new song (a South-Park-parody drug-PSA for kids) and not something from the first album.