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Grex > Music2 > #154: Schoolkids II, and Music Retailing |  |
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| 25 new of 247 responses total. |
mcnally
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response 213 of 247:
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Aug 8 22:33 UTC 2000 |
I can't remember the last time the "average price of CDs" was less
than $10. When exactly is this supposed to have occurred?
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krj
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response 214 of 247:
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Aug 9 05:32 UTC 2000 |
Mike, see resp:194 in this item.
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krj
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response 215 of 247:
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Aug 9 05:53 UTC 2000 |
Schoolkids-in-Exile continues to grow on me. This weekend, Steve
Bergman was chatting about how the little basement store is the same
size as the Schoolkids he opened in 1976. The folk music section
continues to grow a bit, and I also found some goodies in the African
music section. I suspect the selection continues to bear
Bergman's personal stamp, so how much you will enjoy it will
depend on how congruent your tastes are with his.
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mcnally
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response 216 of 247:
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Aug 9 18:48 UTC 2000 |
The only way I can conceive of "the average price of CDs" having been
under $10 during the 1994-1996 period is if Best Buy, et al, sold enough
of those $5.99 cut-outs at the front of the store to counter-balance the
entire rest of the industry. $12.99 was a pretty average price for a
retail CD in those years, at least by my recollection.
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krj
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response 217 of 247:
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Oct 12 00:29 UTC 2000 |
I've groused occasionally in the past about the lack of good CD shopping
opportunities in Chicago. On last weekend's trip I found the new (?)
Virgin Megastore on the "Magnificent Mile," somewhat south of the
Water Tower. It's a classic big-city CD shop, and I found all sorts of
goodies there, including discs by Lo'Jo and the Terem Quartet which
I thought would have to be ordered from Europe. I was mostly poking
through the World Music section and it was pretty decently stocked.
The staff was chatty and knowledgable, and I ended up buying three
of the discs playing in different parts of the story: Celia Cruz, the
new Louis Armstrong & Duke Ellington reissue, and a collection of
piano studies based on Chopin. I really enjoyed lolling around in
the classical section since classical CD shopping in Ann Arbor has
taken such a hit this year.
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mcnally
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response 218 of 247:
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Oct 12 02:28 UTC 2000 |
Did you happen to go see Celia Cruz when some U group brought her to
Hill Auditorium two years ago? It was a really fun show..
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orinoco
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response 219 of 247:
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Oct 12 02:31 UTC 2000 |
Yeah, I love that store. (I'm not sure how new it is, but it's been around
at least since the beginning of last year). I was surprised to see that it's
got the largest and best-stocked classical section of any store I've been in,
and the listening stations mostly had <gasp> music I enjoyed hearing.
As far as gigantor CD shops go, it seems to be pretty well-rounded -- I
heard Macy Gray and Yat-Kha both for the first time there.
From what I can tell, most of the good CD shopping in Chicago is
well-hidden and not downtown -- closer to Wazoo than to Schoolkids' in
terms of noticeability. Alas, since I've been here, I've done most of my
shopping when I'm back in Ann Arbor, so I can't give much by way of
reccomendation, other than that Earwax Cafe is a way fun place.
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orinoco
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response 220 of 247:
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Oct 12 02:32 UTC 2000 |
Mike slipped in. (Exciting stuff, no?)
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krj
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response 221 of 247:
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Oct 26 21:42 UTC 2000 |
Continuing on from resp:212, I condense a report from today's
http://salon.com, "What The Hell's Going On In The Music Biz?"
With the RIAA's Minimum Advertised Price (MAP) policy shot down in flames
by the FTC and state Attorney Generals, Best Buy decided to offer the
new Limp Bizkit CD as a loss leader. Best Buy sold 500,000 of this
disc at $9.99, losing two dollars per disc; this was half of the
one million Limp Bizkit units sold nationwide.
Quoting from Salon:
"MAP was originally put into effect to stop precisely what Best Buy
is doing. Will Best Buy's move provoke an across-the-board price
war? Consumers hope so. Mom and pop retailers, which can't compete
at those prices, hope not. If stores like Best Buy and the Good Guys
start low-balling prices again, it could finish off an independent
record-retail industry that already took a mighty hit in the
pre-MAP years."
Of course, most of Ann Arbor's independent record-retail industry has
already been finished off. Perhaps the future of the CD business
is entirely as a loss-leader for consumer electronics.
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krj
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response 222 of 247:
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Oct 31 19:39 UTC 2000 |
from a news story on http://www.redherring.com about Tower Records'
dot-com operation:
It's a good thing Tower's online operations are doing well.
The company's traditional business is struggling. Despite total
sales of $1.03 billion last year, the company's net loss was
$8.8 million. The advent of competition, such as Borders,
Amazon.com and CDNow, is widely seen to be eating into Tower's
sales.
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mcnally
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response 223 of 247:
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Nov 1 00:10 UTC 2000 |
I guess that's what happens when you only charge $17.99 for CDs --
there's just no profit margin..
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krj
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response 224 of 247:
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Nov 17 01:46 UTC 2000 |
OK, I'm pissed as hell so I'm going to vent about it here.
After I missed out on getting the Peter Gabriel album OVO last night
at Borders, I saw copies in the window at SKR Downtown. This was
way after SKR's closing time, so today I figured I'd make a special
trip downtown, pay for parking, be a supportive customer of the local
business.
And when I got there, I found out that SKR had priced this disc at
$32.99.
I complained about the price to the young woman at the counter.
"It's an import," she shrugged. At that point I went ballistic
and said some rather intemperate things, and stormed out of the store.
Tower East Lansing, when they have stocked OVO, have had it
around $25. Amazon.com prices it at $22.49. Amazon.co.uk lists it for
12 UK pounds, which right now is less than $18 in US funds.
Borders.com lists it at $17.46.
If SKR had been competitive with Tower, I would have cheerfully
paid the $25 and I'd be playing the CD now. Instead, I'm now swearing
that this is the last time I make a special trip to try to
get something from SKR uptown or downtown.
I'd write to the owner and tell him that he's pissed off a customer,
but I can't find an e-mail address for the SKR operation and the web
site claims to be "under construction."
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eeyore
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response 225 of 247:
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Nov 17 03:53 UTC 2000 |
Yeah, I was looking for the GBS Canadian stuff, and they were telling me $32.
I ended up getting it for (at most) $20 for one, and $18 for the other two.
That was the last time I was in that store.
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krj
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response 226 of 247:
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Nov 17 05:28 UTC 2000 |
Megan, was that SKR on Liberty, or Schoolkids-in-the-Basement on State St?
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krj
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response 227 of 247:
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Nov 17 05:45 UTC 2000 |
(Ah, I looked at the e-mail I sent you in April, when Schoolkids-
in-the-Basement had the Canadian GBS stuff at $18.)
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eeyore
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response 228 of 247:
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Nov 17 14:52 UTC 2000 |
I got the GBS stuff at Basement, except for one that they didn't have, but
I got recently at Media Play! (They carry all of the GBS Canadian...I was
a little surprised...) The SKR on Liberty was the one that said they
couldorder them for $32.
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anderyn
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response 229 of 247:
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Nov 18 12:35 UTC 2000 |
It's scary when MediaPlay has a better selection than SKR.
FYI, if you're interested in Canadian bands, Festival Distribution has a nifty
catalog AND charges Canadian dollars.... which means that you can get things
very inexpensively.
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eeyore
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response 230 of 247:
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Nov 19 04:16 UTC 2000 |
How does one find their catalog?
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anderyn
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response 231 of 247:
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Nov 19 17:48 UTC 2000 |
I have a copy, and I got on their mailing list via the Internet.
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dbratman
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response 232 of 247:
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Nov 21 17:04 UTC 2000 |
Re Ken's unfortunate retail experience in 224: I remember being amazed
to see American import rock CDs at Tower in Piccadilly Square in London
priced at 20 pounds - and this at a time when that would be rather more
than US$30 (and web retailing did not exist). I began to regret that I
hadn't, like Westerners taking blue jeans to the old East Bloc, brought
along a box of these CDs from home and sold them on the street corner.
I could have given a massive discount and still have made a killing.
(Yes, I know this would have been illegal. But the amazing thing is
what isn't illegal.)
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krj
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response 233 of 247:
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Nov 21 21:56 UTC 2000 |
I bought a copy of Peter Gabriel's OVO for $22.99 from Tower East Lansing.
Ten dollars cheaper than SKR. I really need to write the SKR owner
a letter.
Leslie and I drove out to Harmony House's classical store in Royal Oak
over the weekend. Leslie has been needing to do some browsing for
Tchaikovsky song discs -- and Szymanoski song discs, if any such
exist. The web retailers are poor at this sort of browsing, if you
don't have the title of a specific song -- and if your transliteration
of a song title from Russian doesn't match their transliteration.
Trying to browse through everything that turns up on a search for
"Tchaikovsky" on a web store is painful.
So in the bins Leslie found a couple of Tchaikovsky
song CDs, and we found a bunch of other classical items,
like a highlights disc from Verdi's ATTILA
(for $5!) and a closeout on a set of Chopin polonaises, and
a new disc of selections from obscure Donizetti operas.
It's the sort of shopping experience you can't have
in Ann Arbor any more, now that the best classical music section is
the one at Borders. I sure hope this store manages to last.
(Aside for David: Harmony House is a venerable Detroit-area music
chain. Their regular shops are just mall stores, nothing special,
but a few years ago when they moved to a new store in Royal Oak, they
turned their old Royal Oak space into a very good classical specialist
store.)
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dbratman
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response 234 of 247:
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Nov 24 18:36 UTC 2000 |
Ken - if this isn't too obvious, what you need is to consult a copy of
the Schwann Opus catalog. There's nothing like a print catalog for
certain types of browsing. I buy a new one every couple of years. I
don't have it here at home, so I can't look up Szymanowski for you
right now, but under each composer, general song recitals are listed
under "Songs" with a list of the songs included (a feature Schwann
didn't used to have), while song cycles assembled by the composer are
under title.
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krj
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response 235 of 247:
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Nov 24 20:44 UTC 2000 |
Thanks for the suggestion, David! We hadn't thought of it. Is the Schwann
stuff still being published on paper? I'd thought I'd read they were
moving online -- but even in an online format they might offer what
Leslie needs in detailed classical browsing.
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dbratman
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response 236 of 247:
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Nov 30 23:11 UTC 2000 |
Ken - Schwann is not online (though they have an informational web
page). The classical catalog, which is now called "Schwann Opus", is a
1000-page behemoth released quarterly, a far cry from the smaller and
less informative monthly of yore. It gives album titles (e.g. "Live at
Carnegie Hall"), detailed lists of contents, (frequently) dates of
recording, etc etc.
I have my catalog to hand now, so I can tell you that there's one
Szymanowski song collection in the Spring '00 issue. The singer(s)
isn't listed, which is unusual, but the album is titled "Songs with
Orchestra"; it includes "Love Songs of Hafiz", "Songs of the Infatuated
Muezzin", "Songs of a Fairy-Tale Princess", "Roxana's Song",
and "Songas after Kasprowicz", and it's Naxos 8553688. There's also a
recording of "Muezzin" paired with Felicien David's "Le Desert", sung
by G. Ottenthal (soprano), on Capriccio 10379.
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anderyn
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response 237 of 247:
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Dec 1 12:15 UTC 2000 |
Wow. Weird stuff at Borders last night!
I went in to the music section at the downtown Ann Arbor Borders just to poke
around, not really planning on buying anything. But... wow. Several copies
of Bedlam Born (Steeleye Span's newest) at *gulp* $13.99. Two copies of John
Tams' Unity at ditto. Several copies of Gabriel's OVO (23.99). Maddy Prior's
Ravenchild. ... Quite a lot of things that I had not thought would be
available Stateside, actually. So I got Bedlam Born.
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