CDs of popular music are actually the easiest to find. (Target, Walmart or any big local equivalent will have the top charting artists stocked as CDs)

It's the more esoteric artists that have become increasingly difficult to get CDs for. Streaming is really a boon for anything outside the mainstream.

The last time I bought a cd-looking disc, the "CD" "CompactDisc" logo/words/terms were nowhere on it, inside or out.

I seem to recall that meant they weren't actually CDs, they just happened to look exactly like them, and usually function in a CD player. Computers often had trouble with them.

I don't know if this is true, or just bs, but there you go.

The logo you want is the CD Digital Audio logo which requires adherence to the red book standard. Music discs with Sony root kit DRM did not have this logo.

Ironically Sony and Philips wrote the redbook.