Did anyone else do this?
Growing up in the '80s, I noticed there were a lot of songs that got a few plays on radio or MTV but were never heard again. There were some of them that I only heard when they inched onto 'American Top 40' for a couple weeks. In the mid-'80s, WCLU played almost every record that made the top 40 a little bit, but even WCLU would stop playing a minor hit pretty quickly.
So later, around the end of the '80s, I started buying 45 RPM singles of a lot of these lost hits. There was a record shop in my area that actually sold these records. Remember, CD's weren't big yet. I think I buyed a couple of Simply Reds or maybe a Peter Wolf or two. Maybe even an Elvis Costello or Starpoint or Eddy Grant (who wasn't just a one-hit wonder). Another record shop opened that carried used records, and I got stacks of 45's there. Once in a great while, I was so determined to find a particular lost hit that I buyed the album when I couldn't find the single. Lost hits continued to pile up in the '90s, and sometimes I got the cassette single if I couldn't get the 45.
I still have these records and cassettes, except for a few that I left with a family member with the intent on picking up later. I just hope that the remaining records haven't been tossed in the recycle bin by now.
These days, there's no such thing as a lost hit, because radio just doesn't have any influence to decide which songs to keep playing. Performers' official YouTube channels are full of songs that may have become lost hits otherwise.