good riddance to record stores ?

[Fer Urbina]

All that survives is Woollies

???

I was looking for any updates on Ray's at Foyles, and I found Bev's comment on Woollies, which has now folded. These are interesting times...

Anyways, I was at Foyles today. The Jazz CD shop, still called Ray's, has now taken what used to be the Remainders/Discount books room on the third floor. Spacious and nice.

But... MDC seem to have taken over the whole CD business at Foyles, and they have a classical CD shop around the corner from the Jazz shop, where the music books used to be.

And they have shut down the Remainders section for good.

F

[ejp626]

I knew it wasn't much longer, but was still surprised to walk by Dr. Wax in Evanston and saw they were going out of business. I really hadn't planned to go in, but at 70% off (and all vinyl at $2) it was too much to pass up. Very few gems, though I did get Cab Calloway with Chu Berry and a couple of Tom Harrell CDs. I did better with the classical CDs where there wasn't as much competition.

They had a $1 rack of pop CDs, and I picked one up. I guess I hadn't considered that someone would have bothered to steal the CDs out of a $1 sale, but in fact neither I nor the clerk looked inside the case. A pretty minor loss though still annoying. My worst sale-related loss was when Crow's Nest in the Loop closed. They had this system I always hated where you couldn't see the cash register ring anything up. Well, sure enough on the day that box sets went 50% off, they charged me twice for the same set, which I didn't discover until looking over the receipt a bit later, but it was too late to dispute the charge. (I had bought some other things so it wasn't immediately obvious what the total should be, and I was running late so I didn't check carefully on the way out when I still could have done something about it.) In this case, I am pretty sure the asshole clerk did it on purpose (and pocketed the difference).

I guess I don't know what it is about the music business that encourages so much bad behavior all the way around -- performers, agents, record execs, store clerks and free-loading, downloading fans. The kicker about the Dr. Wax closing is that they are going out of business Christmas Eve. That's cold (for the couple of employees still left there).

[BruceH]

I recently did a day trip to boston/cambridge. in eight hours, I hit:

cambridge: planet records, newbury comics (harvard square), stereojacks, twisted village, looney tunes, and cheapo records.

Cheapo Records is still around?? That's nice.

[Cina]

Cheapo is in Minneapolis and they have 5ish shops still around but only a couple have vinyl. They have gone down in quality bc of foreign buyers but you can always find one or two things there normally.

Some of the best shops in the USA have been hitting the dust. I think record shops need to think about their store differently. Seems like they should be reaching out more to people in creative ways, but the fact is that people are fine with having 128 bit digital copies. I don't understand it, but I am in the minority.

[peterintoronto]

It seems to me that technological advances are only partly to blame for the death of music formats and retailers.

It's also the music itself: it's hardly engrossing and memorable stuff. Bands like The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, etc. created and maintained enormous merchandising trends. There were a ton of posters, books, figures, buttons and pins to buy of these classic acts.

Not to mention the records - people didn't mind shelling out for 45s and LPs of these bands, because if you were a Beatles fan at 15, chances were you were still going to be a Beatles fan in five or ten years. Nowadays, the musical acts are so fleeting in popularity and legend, that the most a fan is willing to risk is $0.99 for a cellular ring-tone of their 'favourite artist'. At least they can delete it and replace it when the next flavor-of-the-month comes along.

I don't mean to sound pessimistic, but I believe that in many ways, we are a civilization in decline.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

It seems to me that technological advances are only partly to blame for the death of music formats and retailers.

It's also the music itself: it's hardly engrossing and memorable stuff. Bands like The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, etc. created and maintained enormous merchandising trends. There were a ton of posters, books, figures, buttons and pins to buy of these classic acts.

Not to mention the records - people didn't mind shelling out for 45s and LPs of these bands, because if you were a Beatles fan at 15, chances were you were still going to be a Beatles fan in five or ten years. Nowadays, the musical acts are so fleeting in popularity and legend, that the most a fan is willing to risk is $0.99 for a cellular ring-tone of their 'favourite artist'. At least they can delete it and replace it when the next flavor-of-the-month comes along.

I don't mean to sound pessimistic, but I believe that in many ways, we are a civilization in decline.

Well, you DO sound pessimistic

It's not that you haven't got a point, but I know that, in the forties and fifties, record producers were taking exactly the same attitude to the singes they were doing of Clyde McPhatter, the Clovers, Ivory Joe Hunter, the Orioles, Joe Liggins etc etc - that this was music with a ten minute lifespan, as it were. But it turned out not to be - and not because of nostalgia; because it was good music; music that was the best those people could make at the time; and they were talented people.

I think there is still talent around. And I think people are still trying to do the best they can at this time. What may be different is that so many of today's "pop idols" seem to be discovered through TV talent competitions. Now there's a role for such programmes and in the past some good people have come up through them (though the best were mostly comedians, I suspect - at least, over here). But it's a minor role, at best. But it seems to be the norm now. So there is less of a tendency to find people coming up through the same process of playing to local audiences first and honing whatever it is they've got to the needs of a real audience with whom they identify (and there's no doubt that the Beatles and Stones etc did that).

MG

[six string]

At a time of the year when some of us get reflective and count our blessings I had to tell the owner of one of our independent record stores I shop how much I appreciate him being here and hanging tough in a time when most stores are disappearing. I mentioned how some people's only brick and mortar outlet for purchasing music are chains like Best Buy, Walmart, etc. He said he'd hate to be forced to go to those places to buy music. "You might as well put a gun to my head." Extreme, but you get the point and I agree. I feel pretty lucky that I have four good record stores in town and there's even another one but I don't go in very often. Jazz selection is crap and it seems to be focused on the youth/punk rock market.

[Jazzmoose]

I think there is still talent around. And I think people are still trying to do the best they can at this time. What may be different is that so many of today's "pop idols" seem to be discovered through TV talent competitions. Now there's a role for such programmes and in the past some good people have come up through them (though the best were mostly comedians, I suspect - at least, over here). But it's a minor role, at best. But it seems to be the norm now. So there is less of a tendency to find people coming up through the same process of playing to local audiences first and honing whatever it is they've got to the needs of a real audience with whom they identify (and there's no doubt that the Beatles and Stones etc did that).

MG

Sure there's still talent around, but I think the main reason the music industry ain't what it used to be is the complete fragmentation of audiences combined with the blockbuster mentality of the industry. You can't have it both ways without surrounding yourself with bland, prepackaged clones with the shelf life of an old tangerine...

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

I think there is still talent around. And I think people are still trying to do the best they can at this time. What may be different is that so many of today's "pop idols" seem to be discovered through TV talent competitions. Now there's a role for such programmes and in the past some good people have come up through them (though the best were mostly comedians, I suspect - at least, over here). But it's a minor role, at best. But it seems to be the norm now. So there is less of a tendency to find people coming up through the same process of playing to local audiences first and honing whatever it is they've got to the needs of a real audience with whom they identify (and there's no doubt that the Beatles and Stones etc did that).

MG

Sure there's still talent around, but I think the main reason the music industry ain't what it used to be is the complete fragmentation of audiences combined with the blockbuster mentality of the industry. You can't have it both ways without surrounding yourself with bland, prepackaged clones with the shelf life of an old tangerine...

I'm not sure fragmentation of audiences has occurred (yet?). If you're right, however, it spells the end of major labels. Now, I'd say "good" to that, because I've never bought much stuff that was actually produced by the majors. But if they go, I wonder what happens to the music (and masters of) all the great indie companies the majors bought in the fifties, sixties, seventies, eighties and nineties? Library of Congress?

MG