As expected, the end has arrived for Jim Leonard's SKR stores on Liberty St. The remaining stock is now 30% off. A clerk said that holiday sales were disappointing, and that the stores would close by the end of January. SKR Classical was originally a division of the old Schoolkids Records, and for about a decade it was a pretty good classical specialist shop. The Classical store was sold to manager Jim Leonard around what, 1997?, as the original Schoolkids struggled for capital. After the original Schoolkids suspended operations on Liberty St. in fall 1998, Jim Leonard's SKR Classical took over the storefronts and ran a pop/rock side and a jazz/blues side. The new SKR stores never seemed to establish themselves with customers; I rarely saw more than one or two people in there, at times when Borders was packed. I was afraid this expansion would end up costing us SKR Classical, and my expectations were fulfilled when the SKR operations ran a "partial liquidation" in Spring 2000. That large sale wiped out most of the classical stock, and it was never rebuilt; since then the stores have just seemed to be marking time. Previous comments about the Schoolkids and SKR stores can be found in the music conference, items 149 & 154. (item:music,149 and item:music ,154) ((( linked between Agora, Music and Classicalmusic )))194 responses total.
I never really shopped there. I'm a different market. In fact, from the looks of it, *everyone* is a different market.
My only worry is what is going to replace the location. Another music store would be nice, though economically hard to justify. I'd prefer to keep some of downtown reasonable attractive to visit. Starbucks is infringing on too much already. At this rate, South U and the rest of downtown might not be recognizable (or worthwhile) to me in five years.
So how many record stores are left in Ann Arbor now?
Discount Records at State & Liberty, The music section at Borders (which is pretty well stocked), Harmony House on Liberty right close to Discount Records, Encore Records (used CDs, vinyl, & cassettes), Some kind of used store (or maybe two) over on S. University, Wazoo (used) P.J.s (used) Then a lot of big-box stores on the edge of town, if you want to count them.
Don't forget that you can also find used records and CDs at the public library book sale (Sat. mornings), Kiwanis (ditto - records start at 10 cents and go up to a dollar), and the PTO Thrift Shop, and Reuse Ann Arbor (both open daily), and yard sales. Anywhere else?
(there's a store or two in Briarwood, last I checked.)
yes, but ever since briawood made the exclusive deal with record town making them the only music store in the mall, both tape world and musicland closed. If you wondered why Musicland expanded their store in Arborland (back when it was "indoors") that's way. to make up for the lack of one in Briarwood.
How could I have forgotten Schoolkids in Exile? It's still there under Bivouac.
How on earth does Discount Records stay in business? Or is it for some reason being propped up by the remainder of the Musicland chain?
discount is a sam goody store. if you want to talk about used records, I think treasure mart has a slew of them too. Disc Go Round is on south university. I hope tower comes back and moves into SKRs old spot.
That would be the most attractive option to me. I don't know if they could make it work, though. Borders is tough competition, and they have to start from the ground up. I suspect their employment and stock have moved on to other things. Then again, a foothold in the location might just be worth all that trouble. I'll cross my fingers. I'd count Best Buy and Media Play if we're counting mall stores as well. I used to like Best Buy's selection better, but they still have a fair amount of good stuff.
It was in the very early eighties that I started building a classical music collection. I had no idea what was good and only a slightly better grasp on what I liked. Jim Leonard sort of took me on as a project, I think. Every few weeks I'd stop by, tell him what I thought of his last pick, and he'd suggest another. It was years later, as I started to hear other versions of the same pieces, that I realized how he'd help me avoid a lot of mediocre purchases. I was pleased to see him advance to salesperson, to manager, then owner, and it saddens me now to see SKR close. But I also know I'm part of the problem. First off, I'm down to only buying one, maybe two new classical disks a year. And those are pretty obscure pieces which would need to be special ordered from a traditional shop. Instead I find them on Amazon.com, listen to excerpts, and have them delivered to my door within days.
The thing is, at this point it's so much easier to go to Amazon and wait a couple of days, rather than try to park downtown.
re 10, Discount records is not a Sam Goody store, since Sam Goody, Discount Records, Media Play, Suncoast Motion Picture Company, and Musicland are all owned by the Musicland Group, based out of MN. They expanded too quickly and most of their stores floundered. The only think that keeps someo of them alive, is that people don't know they're musicland.
I've never had a good opinion of Jim Leonard, no matter how knowledgeable about music he is. Some of his comments about Schoolkids' Records and his takeover of same sounded childish to me. At least, that's the impression I got. I also was not favorably impressed when he almost ran me down with his SUV one day while I was walking on Linwood.
Y'know, I still don't like to shop on Amazon. Just hate it. I'd rather go to a store, and look, and fondle, and all that. (I *do* buy music and books over the Internet, but only those that (a) I can't find in town or (b) that would cost an arm and a leg if I were to buy them from the physical stores.) Mostly, these days, I go to Borders. Though the British Isles section at the downtown Borders stinks right now. And I'm not thrilled with the folk section, either. The Arborland Borders, interestingly enough, has shown some intelligence and spark in its acquisitions of those categories, and I've found things there that I haven't at the downtown store. This is scary. (Well, to think that a mall Borders would be better/faster/more interesting than the main downtown store means that SOMETHING is seriously wrong at Borders HQ, imho.) If I don't go to Borders, I will check Schoolkids in Exile (when my knees are feeling un-creaky enough), or *ick, Twila hangs her head in shame* MediaPlay/BestBuy. (But when I go there, I feel in need of a fix of popular music!)
Media Play is owned by Record Town, I think. I know that it is owned by one of the mall chains.
Musicland Group. I know. I worked for them and set up several stores. It's amazing the amount of information you get when you are hoping to become the coveted Assistant Manager.
Actually, it's not terribly arcane information. It's all listed (except the Discount Records part) on www.musicland.com
Hmm. I'll really miss SKR, though I don't buy that many CDs from them. I haven't been all that impressed with Borders's classical selection, in comparison ... but then again, I really don't get downtown often enough to have checked out SKR's in a couple of years at least. Borders's folk-type sections (the only other stuff I've really ever checked out) aren't all that great, either, I think.
Borders is noisy.
Schoolkids was one corner of my great triangle in the late 1970's and 1980's, together with the Michigan Theater and Borders. Three places to go for happiness. I moved to Texas, and by the time I came back Schoolkids and Border's were wearing a little thin, but still great. Now Schoolkids and Border's are both dead and getting to the Michigan Theater is impossible for me to fit into my schedule. Sigh. Oh, you thought Borders still existed? Sorry, different Borders. The thing that stands on the site of the old Borders and bears its name is merely the animated corpse of Borders. It still has lots of books, and I still go there sometimes when I want to buy some books, but what differentiates a great bookstore from a lousy one is that spirit that that staff feed into it. In a great bookstore, if you walk into the mystery section and look at the arrangement of books on the shelf, then you see before you a physical manifestation of the understanding of the genre brought to it by an informed intelligent reader of mysteries. Today the mystery section at Nicola's books has some of this (but the science fiction section there is stupid). No section in Borders has it, though every section used to. If there are any staff members there who are still passionate about books, then they have been embedded in a corporate framework that ensures that they don't express their personal tastes in their work. The shelves are clearly arranged by the same anonymous corporation that arranges the shelves at Barnes & Noble, which cares more about the price stickers than the contents of the books. If they sell you a good book, you can be sure that it was by accident. Foo. Oh well, at least Seva is starting to return to some of it's old glory. I thought I'd lost that as well, but it's rebounding under its new ownership.
Interesting comments about Borders. My feeling too has been that the Ann Arbor Borders has been slipping the last few years, but at least as of six months ago it still struck me as a good bookstore. Perhaps it's because it was the layout I was used to, but I still generally went into Borders and found lots of stuff I wanted to read, very easily, and when I did have questions for the staff they usually seemed to know which books or sections to direct me towards. I don't know whether it's the staff in the Ann Arbor Borders that does the parts of the layout that aren't dictated by what the publishers pay them to do, but even if the dictates are coming from the Ann Arbor based headquarters, it's likely that the Ann Arbor Borders is the one the people doing the layout see on a regular basis. I've spent the last several months scouting Bay Area bookstores, with the Ann Arbor Borders being the standard I measure others against. Looking at the various Borders clone stores has been interesting. They all seem to have copied their sections from the Ann Arbor Borders, but the implementations vary widely. The Union Square Borders in San Francisco has all the sections, and probably all the same titles, as the Ann Arbor Borders, but has the feel of something that somebody put together from an instruction manual, without really understanding what they were doing, such that even being very familiar with what they had apparrently been trying to copy, finding stuff there was pretty maddening. The Palo Alto Borders, on the other hand, I found to be quite nice. Once again, it has the same sections, and probably most of the same titles, as the Ann Arbor store, but they seem to have done the layout very well. Their sections focusing on more local stuff, which I assume aren't dictated too strictly from headquarters, are stocked with lots of interesting stuff. The building is different enough from the Ann Arbor Borders that copying the layout wouldn't work, but the layout they do have works very well. I haven't interacted much with the staff there, but it's been because I didn't have to. Being in a university town probably makes a big difference to the sort of staff they hire. I've been exploring non-Borders bookstores too. There's a bookstore in my neighborhood that certainly fits Jan's requirement of having a staff that's passionate about books, and I know lots of people who think it's the world's best bookstore, but I've never had much luck finding what I was looking for there. The best conclusion I can come to about the place is that the staff is passionate about a different type of books than I like, but I also get the impression they haven't given much thought to how a bookstore should be organized. There are some good independant bookstores or small chains around here, though. Staceys, which is next door to my office (can't beat the location), is every bit as huge as the Borders stores, and seems to have a very good selection. Still, it made me feel like I had to really look to find the interesting stuff burried among the rest of the selection. Stuff I knew I wanted was easy, but it seemed like the sort of store I could browse in for a long time before finding anything that would really grab me. Telegraph Ave, the street in Berkeley that seems like a year round combination of Ann Arbor's Art Fair and Hash Bash, has a couple of good bookstores. Moe's seems to mostly be a used bookstore, with a collection large enough to seem really daunting. Their new section is considerably smaller, so the selection is somewaht limited, but the stuff they do have is pretty good. Next door to Moe's is Cody's, which is quickly becoming my favorite. It reminds me somewhat of the pre-chain Borders, back when it was on State Street. It's very much an academic bookstore, with a huge selection obviously arranged by people who understood what they were doing. The tables and book displays just inside the door are covered with interesting stuff. It's the place here that I walk into not intending to buy anything, and come out with large quantities of stuff that I really want to read, which is what used to be the best thing about Borders.
My parents are very impressed by the Borders in Rochester. This surprised me a bit, but in thinking about it, even in it's attenuated chain form, it may still be overall better than anything else I can think of in the Rochester NY area. When I was growing up, there were a variety of bookstores in Rochester, but not a huge number and they each had their interesting limitations. I also think most of those places have since gone under - mostly for reasons not connected to Borders. I remember Toronto as being a much more exciting place to buy books and a real treat compared to what was available in Rochester. I'm not sure that's true today. The chains seem to have invaded Toronto as well and it seems much more the same as what we have here in the states. Used book stores still seem to be more different; I don't quite understand why, but it always seems like used book stores in different states have categorically different "stuff".
I've never enjoyed Borders excessively much, because I'm mostly familiar with the newer location and I like places (Barnes and Noble, specifically) with comfortable chairs that I can sit and read in. It is, however, a good place to buy books. The World's Largest Bookstore (that's the title) in Toronto is a sterile warehouse by comparison, but it still has a lot of books. I don't know. I like sedate, relaxed places, no unlike libraries. Borders is a bit too crammed for that.
Isn't that interesting? I was just about to say the opposite: that for all I find Borders annoying, it's still ten times better than the other bookstore chains. De gustibus etc. etc.
Sometimes my drive home from work takes me past the Arborland Borders store. I prefer to drive a few blocks farther and drop in at Barnes & Noble instead. Guess that says something about the current state of Borders.
Borders is one of two stores (the other being the Main St. discount book store) that is open later than the library, which we appreciate on our nights out and about.
An out-of-towner pitches in: Ann Arbor was the original home of Borders, right? Now you guys must know how Dr. Frankenstein felt.
And how. And this one used to WORK for them. {shudders} Unfortunaly, they
take a very odd approach to their stores, from a corporate standpoint. They
replenish not based upon what's popular, but the program is written to
replenish stores, basically one for one sold. And that makes a lot of it
childrens books. Not good for money. I should know, I helped write the
program. I like them because they can be nice to read in, however, the chairs
in other stores are more inviting that the "new" downtown borders, and the
new arborland one. I LIKED the old borders store and kinda wish they hadn't
moved.
I only went to the Arborland Borders once, but it strikes me as a typical strip mall Borders, much like the one in Emeryville, They seem a rather different type of Borders than the downtown Borders stores, especially the stores that are in downtowns near universities. Whether that's intentional or an artifact of the types of employees they draw I don't know.
My guess is the latter -- that it hass to do with the employees..
Supposedly the downtown A2 Borders is a training center of sorts.
I feel like it is only in the last year that Borders, after a long steady slump, finally bit the dust. Some of the more obvious symptoms: In the Science Fiction section they have removed the old shelf that used to have new releases from the last few weeks in it. Why? For a regular shopper that's an amazing convenience. It had gotten fairly unreliable for a while - a reissue of an old Robert Jordon book with a new cover on it gets displayed, but a new book by Norman Spinrad just gets slipped quietly into the back shelves. Sure, they can expect to sell more of the Jordan, but it's basically a marketing ploy to get more people to start reading his endless series of big fat books (each book in such a series much have lower sales than the one before, so getting the first book read a lot is important from a marketing point of view), while the a Spinrad book is something worth noting for people who care about the insides of books. Tastes vary, and I certainly agree that a new book by Robert Jordan, or even Mercedes Lackey deserves prominent placement, but I'd rather shop in a bookstore that gives the appearance of servering the agenda of me, the reader, rather than of the publishing companies. Anyway, the "new books" shelf has completely vanished, replaced by a desultry display of "book we are pushing this month" - sometimes new, mostly not. There is a table with new paperback fiction, where Science Fiction is mixed with Mystery, Horror and General Fiction. I could live with that, if it actually did a decent job, but it doesn't. I still have to search the stacks for new books deemed unworthy of public display. I'm not a shopper who commonly asks staff a lot of questions, so I don't have a direct way of telling if they have much going on in their heads. They seem like generally cool people, from the talk I overhear, and not incompetant, but not really into it. I actually feel like I know the guy who used to do science fiction and later computers at borders, although I never spoke more than a few sentences with him, and I'm sure he has no idea who I am. I'd sign up to be in his fan club any day. I still see him on the streets from time to time, but not in borders anymore. Wonder what he's up to.
Wednesday's Ann Arbor News has a story in the business section about the SKR closing. Jim Leonard says, paraphrasing, that the heavy snows of December killed holiday sales, and that he shouldn't have expanded the stores. Steve Bergman says that his sales at Schoolkids-in-the-Basement were up 70% for the year, but he does not forsee a return to street-level retailing.
I've had occasion, recently, to ask for help at Borders. Several times. In the OLD old days (across the street) the average staffer would probably have known where to find the exact book. These days, well, they tried to help. When the computer didn't turn up ANYTHING by the author, literally, I started guessing other possible locations (than the one I'd checked already). (This was fantasy, but somewhat juvenile. Not with fantasy/sf. Is it in either of a couple of "children's" places? No. Is it in Young Adult? Yes, several different titles. (Why didn't the computer find them by author??)) <sigh> That's the most recent time I sought help, but is fairly typical.
Mmmm, yes, that seems to be the norm at Borders these days -- if it's not on the computer, then it doesn't exist. No matter that I have an isbn or review, or anything like that.... siiiigh
Yeah. The computer makes it interesting for sure. Having the computer allows Borders to pay the staff less because it helps them deal with the higher turnover rates that the lower pay tends to cause. When they pay the staff less, it allows them to sell books for less and still make a profit. The computer system also allows Borders to cut costs in other ways. But, it does mean less customer service than one might get at a non-chain bookstore with a long term staff. Unfortunately, really good bookstores just arent as profitable as chains like Borders and Barnes and Noble. Personally, I have found the staff at Borders to be pretty amazing considering the very very low amount they are being paid.
The one remaining (that I knew of) independent retailer of classical music recordings in the Bay Area closed down last month. They weren't convenient to me, so I didn't go there often, and in any case the only area where their stock was superior to Tower's was musical theatre. Stores like that are supposed to thrive on service, so I can't forget the time I asked them about something by Malcolm Arnold, and the clerk couldn't find him in the computer because he didn't know how to spell "Malcolm". Rather than give the clerk a spelling lesson, I just gave up and left. (Nor can I forget the independent bookstore whose clerk and owner told me to stop reading in the bookstore - after 15 minutes, while I had a bunch of other books under my arm I was planning to buy. They insisted that no bookstore could permit such a thing, and I think of this whenever I see the comfy chairs in B&N or elsewhere. Needless to say, that bookstore is long out of business.)
It occurrs to me that given the general lack of customer service in the Bay Area, having customer service standards dictated by a large corporation located elsewhere might actually be a good thing.
I have to echo janc's feelings about Borders, but it died somewhat earlier for me than he. I used to go into Border's hoping to find a book on some obscure subject, and be able to find at least a few that fit the bill fairly well, and one that was perfect, as well as running across a bunch of other books I hadn't know I wanted desperately. This is the standard I use to judge bookstores. But Border's stopped fulfilling that need at some point before they moved into the Big Store. They have a lot of books now, but little selection.
I stopped by the SKR stores on Liberty to see if the closeout discount had been upped to 50%. The stores were closed and locked; later I heard that the inventory had been seized by the bank. Signs in the window advise to watch for the liquidation sale.
ha ha!
Yes, I tried to go there Friday, to find stores locked & dark, no signs other than the 30% off ones. <sigh> I'd be interested in the liquidation sale, but probably won't find out about it until too late.
Wow. I always feel like a gathering vulture in circumstances like this.
SKR's liquidation sale ends today at 3:00 PM. It started Thursday. Everything is 50% off. All the furnature and fixtures are for sale. At 5:00 today there will be an auction of large lots of everything that's left. I went to the sale on Thursday, and almost cried on my way out. SKR before its expansion was the only store in Ann Arbor that had a great classical selection and knowledgable staff that could guide you through it. Since I'm also a strong supporter of locally owned businesses, this was one of my favorite stores in town. I never turned to the Internet for making my music purchases. I enjoy the process of browsing though the rows of CDs with something in mind, but taking detours and finding other, unexpected treasures in the process. Where will I go now? Borders has a good selection, but most of the staff isn't able to guide me out of a cardboard box. The classical half of Tower Records was good, but they're gone now. Discount and Harmony House have insignificant classical collections and lack knowledgable staff. I'm fond of Encore, but sometimes I can't find what I'm looking for used or I want to make a special order. I guess now I'm on my own. You will be sorely missed, SKR.
Ah, sorry I missed it. For serious classical music shopping, I think you now need to drive to the Harmony House Classical store in Royal Oak Thanks for the report.
It's appalling that a city which has a large university with a major music school can't support a decent classical music store.
Not surprising at all. All the students and most of teachers have no interest in classical music, and the rest of the population (i.e., the townies) have no use for such a store.
ann arbor considers itself to be a croissant but it is just another buttermilk biscuit floating in the sea of sausage truckstop gravy which is the midwest.
#49> I think John was suggesting that it's appalling that students and faculty at an elite school such as U-M have no particular interest in classical music. It's a pernicious cultural elite thing... if you're well-educated, you MUST like classical music.
Re: 50: Actually, Ann Arbor *is* just another buttermilk biscuit, but it's made with expensive Swedish buttermilk (from Zingerman's, natch) and Argentian organic flour. So Thbbththpb to you...
U-M is "elite"? Compared to what?
compared to Grand Valley State
and slippery rock
And let's not forget the Michael Delizia School of Web Design.
he iz real good..he kin make yore cunpudder look jes like a studebaker hubcap!
remmers in resp:48 :: on the one hand, the issues which took out SKR Classical were specific to that business. Jim Leonard bet the store in a gamble that he could revive the old Schoolkids storefronts on Liberty Street, and he lost, no surprise. On the other hand, the classical share of the CD market has been sinking precipitously: the last number I heard was that it was down to 3% of sales, and that included The Three Tenors, Charlotte Church, and all the crossover stuff. (Classical sales were reported to be 10% of the market in the 1980s, and they still run 7% in Germany, by contrast.) Jim Leonard *may* have thought that there wasn't going to be much future in classical music retailing and he'd better try to broaden his base. I vaguely recall that he wrote somewhere that in a recent year SKR Classical hadn't done badly; his sales were only down half as much as industry-wide classical sales.
Ah, there's a citation: "According to SoundScan... classical recordings accounted for just 2.3 percent of the $755 million in album sales last year ((1999)), compared with 3.9 percent in 1995." US News & World Report, 9/11/2000: http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/000911/music.htm
From the same article: "Andersen Consulting found that online classical and jazz sales accounted for 31 percent of sales in 1999, while instore classical and jazz sales made up just 5 percent of total retail sales." That's a suprising differential to me.
#53> U-M is elite when put in the context of United States Universities not within an hour's drive (or so) of an ocean. There's only a handful of schools comparable to it in that context (U-Az, for instance). Definitely the most prestigious university in Michigan, if nothing else. (I should say that University is being used in the BIG SCHOOL sense... Lawrence Tech and MTU, for instance, are much better for their technical specialties than U-M is, and they're both technically "universities.")
I don't find it all that surprising. I don't even bother to go to local chains for CDs I know are going to be rare, anymore, because it's easier to buy them online than to talk the clerk into special ordering them. I also find it difficult to find classical music in stores; I guess I just don't understand how the albums are arranged. Online I can just keyword search for what I want.
Most stores that carry classical music shove it in the back somewhere. Just FYI. BTW, John may take heart in knowing that while A2 couldn't support a classical music shop, "home" for most of those kids -- SE Oakland County, esp. Birmingham/Royal Oak -- can. Harmony House Classical has been on Woodward for as long as I can remember.
My question was a teaser, but okay anyway, U-M might be elite "when put in the context of United States Universities not within an hour's drive (or so) of an ocean" (and is certainly so when compared to the Michael Delizia School of Web Design). The fact remains that the taste in music of the students and faculty won't support a classical music shop in AA. Why is this so "appalling"? Is it really a bad thing? And if so, why?
re62: that's interesting about having to talk the clerks into special ordering things. In at least one independent music store in Boulder (Bart's CD Cellar) they always offer to special order anything not on the shelf. (I've never tried this with classical CDs however...Bart's classical collection consists of about 20 albums hidden in the back (quite literally), just as brighn says.) But then Boulder has perhaps an unusually strong "support local business" movement...
Michael? You, tease? I'm shocked. My entire image of you has just been shattered. As I said before, I think the implication is that "well-educated" = "cultured" and "cultured" = "classical music lover." I think that (a) we're trained to believe those equations in our society (taking American society as a whole) and (b) neither of those equations is objectively necessitated. So I tend to agree with you that John's use of the word "appalling" -- as opposed to, say, "disappointing" or "surprising" -- is heavy-handed and excessively culturally biased. But then, I'm a well-educated liberal arts major who finds U-M-styled culture to be affected pseudointellectualism and likes a mere handful of classical composers (Mozart, Stravinsky, a few others), and merely in passing, and thinks there's a good reason why most folkies have trouble selling albums, and it has nothing to do with superficial American tastes in music (it has more to do with most folkies being "self-righteous, pretentious, and politically correct, [with views] slilghtly to the left of Karl Marx and Bertoldt Brecht" [Wally Pleasant]). [I mention folkies because they tend also be in the equation "liberal and well-educated" = "cultured and folk music lover".] Not that I have a particular opinion on this (or any other) matter.
It seems that Borders downtown has a lot of acreage of space for Classical Music for the amount of sales it creates. It must be near 20% of the CD floor space.
Man, my little comment sure touched off a tempest. Guess I struck a nerve or two. Some folks sure are touchy. To clarify: No, I don't think that "cultured" equates to "classical music lover". How in the world did anyone infer that from what I said? But consider this: The University of Michigan houses a large, major music school. What's more, there are enough classical music lovers in and around Ann Arbor to support several ongoing concert series that bring in first-rank classical musicians from around the world. Ann Arbor sports an excellent community symphony orchestra, a summer symphony orchestra, a life-sciences symphony orchestra, an Academy of Early Music, and various other groups devoted to classical music. And yet Ann Arbor seems unable to support even a single decent classical music store to service the obviously sizeable community of classical music lovers. How sad. I'll stick by the "appalling".
I bet mostly the same people goe to all of those concerts. If you're concerned that there isn't enough variety in the selection of CDs for sale in AA, or that the shops don't carry a decent selection of your particular favorite kind of music, then the word might be "annoying" or "an inconvenience." But "appalling" does seem to imply something else.
I admit that I'm bummed because the Ann Arbor record stores don't carry enough of my favourite music, but I also don't expect them to. Not really. The problem is that classical music is supposed to have a larger base of listeners than, say, Brit-folk music -- which is my personal addiction. I really think that any largish community should be able to support an interesting and wide-ranging music store, just as any largish community should be able to have a really GOOD bookstore. If I want to buy classical music, I should be able to do it reasonably easily (not that I *have*, I blush to admit, it just doesn't do that much for me...), just as I should be able to buy the classic books in whatever field I'm interested in. That is how an ideal world would work. That's how Ann Arbor used to be, at least, that's how Schoolkids and Borders were... I don't knock the Best Buys and the Waldens, but I'd like to have more choice than they allow.
The thing that makes this sad, in my opinion, is that classical music is one of the very few niches left in the music retailing world in which an independent store with a knowledgable and helpful staff *might* be able to compete with a discount megastore or on-line retailer. If such a store really can't survive in a town like Ann Arbor, then I see no hope at all for the future of independent music retail and that means bad things for the near-term future of music itself, because stores which aren't motivated at least partially by love of the music itself couldn't care less what they're selling, as long as it's selling.
"appalling" does not mean "surprising in the context of the climate described," John. I'm sure you own a dictionary. If you're appalled, it's because you think the situation SHOULD be the way you expect it to be, on some moral or ethical level. As in: "I'm appalled that a university professor would pretend that a common word of English means something other than what it does." Just to use an irrelevant example.
Re#68, 69: Also, and maybe more to the point, I bet they play the same music at most of those concerts. The Classical repertoire is so geared towards, well, "classics" that once you've established your record collection, you don't need to add to it very often, especially if you're just a casual fan. The reason pop music can support such high record sales is, there are always new bands forming, new songs being written, etc., and people feel compelled to keep up. The new composers writing new Classical music these days don't have nearly so much of a following; Beethoven isn't exactly writing any more symphonies; and in the rare event that a new _recording_ of the Beethoven symphonies comes out, only the most hardcore classical fans update their collections. Is it unfortunate that Classical fans in Ann Arbor aren't paying attention to the composers of new music at the U of M? Uh...maybe...but the same thing is happening across the country. It certainly isn't limited to Ann Arbor. Beethoven's refusal to put out any new material, and the general apathy about owning multiple recordings of a piece, also seem to be just as strong in Ann Arbor as elsewhere (unless Beethoven's been doing some _really_ intensive focus-group studies trying to perfect his new sound). In and of itself, Ann Arbor isn't really guilty of anything except Not Being As Big As NYC (or Chicago, or suburban Detroit, or whatever), and so not having a critical mass of those rare fanatics who buy all the new performances.
Beethoven is one of those decomposing composers.
(btw, John, I don't think the conversation re: your comment qualifies as a tempest... it's really just been me and MD tweaking each other. I must laud everyone else for merrily ignoring us. =} )
McNally's #71 explains quite well why I think the situation is appalling.
Hm. I think a more telling instantiation of #71 is Borders, which once WAS an independent store with a knowledgable and helpful staff (not so long ago), and which rapidly became a discount megastore. Of course, that ignores the point that most classical music was originally funded by patrons who were as indifferent to aesthetics as the modern Britney Spears fan. And "as long as it's selling" relies on a common (and faulty) assumption that popular music, almost by definition, is aesthetically worthless and the sort of music sold by "music lovers", almost by definition, has great aesthetic worth. This assumes an objective aesthetic, of which the masses are woefully ignorant... ... which brings us back to my original statement, which is that John's statements were rooted in social elitism.
I see nothing elitist about it. Not everybody in a university community will like classical music, and some people even out in the trackless suburbs have a taste for it, but there is an observed tendency for such people to congregate in a university setting. Given this, it's reasonable to expect a customer base for a record store selling a good selection of classical music. I consider it hair-splitting to criticize John for using the term "appalling" to describe his reaction to the lack of same, rather than "surprising" or "disappointing".
I would be fun to actually dig up some facts, market research maybe, where the style of music (classical, jazz, disco, pop rock, rap, etc.) is compared to the group most likely to purchase within that genre. I'd suspect classical would tend to be purchased by someone who has completed more years of formal education than say rap. I would expect to find the classical audience is somewhat older and richer. The jazz audience would also be more educated than say the acid rock audience, and likewise have higher incomes. Fewer visible tattoos too. Pop audiences would be younger and poorer and still bitching about how sucky school is. But they would tend to be able to stay up all night long having sex until they run out of condoms. So it all works out to be quite fair. And everyone gets to feel they are better than everybody else. Truth.
re #77: Although I'm willing to revisit the issue of the relative aesthetic value of "popular" music versus "music lover" music, I don't think that's the only issue here, or even the main one. It's clearly apparent to anyone who cares about music that the diversity of music being recorded is declining substantially in conjunction with modern music marketing and retail trends. Whether or not you like the music that's most popular now, it's difficult to dispute that changes in the industry have lead to less music being offered and more effort going into developing and marketing acts that occupy a couple of very narrow parts of the broader musical spectrum. Even without making value judgments about which *kind* of music is better, as long as you're willing to agree that less choice is worse than more choice then developments in the music industry should worry you. I'm not sure, though, why I should be afraid of making value judgments when it comes to music. Granted, there is no complete objective aesthetic standard by which we can settle disputes, but I have my own standards and if those are too personal to be of value to anyone else, for any set of listeners you care to define I will argue that that set will possess *some* group consensus which will permit agreement on many gross value judgments. Perhaps I'm just so "elitist" that it doesn't bother me to be called "elitist", or perhaps I just reject the idea that without an objective and impartial standard you're not allowed to care what happens, but speaking solely for myself, I find what's happening in the world of music distressing enough that I might agree that "appalling" is not too strong a word..
Well, it *is* rather appalling that Ann Arbor can't support a really good independent record store any more. (While Schoolkids in Exile is still there, it's not easy to walk into and you have to special order things quite a bit, in my experience.) I find the idea of not having the opportunity to actually examine the things I am buying really annoying --- yes, I know you can listn to a snippet from amazon.com....
There is a steady audience for classical music in and around Ann Arbor of several thousand at least. Not all of that audience is resident *in* Ann Arbor, however. There is a hardcore audience of early music enthusiasts of at least a couple of thousand, though the same consideration applies. U-M is home to a very highly regarded school of music, with a strong -- but not exclusive -- focus on classical musics. The upshot of that is that people from around the nation, if not the world, seek out the University of Michigan to attend this school of music. These are undisputed facts, not somebody's ego-driven, unsupported opinions. National statistics on classical record sales and online vs. OTC sales will both likely under-reflect applicable stats in Ann Arbor, due in part to the highly developed technological infrastructure and community and also in part to the average educational level, which *does* correlate to awareness and appreciation of classical music.
I wonder if Ann Arbor's difficulties in sustaining a classical musical CD store is not as much related to the high cost of retail space, and inept marketing, as anything else.
WEll, I think borders carries a wide selection of classical music, so I doubt any independent store would do better sales wise. I just don't think the market is there. That is, there are times when one needs to buy a selection of the classical variety, but once you have The New World Symphony in your collection, you are not going to have to replace it very often. I prefered to shop at Borders for its selection and conveinience as opposed to any of the several other stores in town.
I think that is the problem, Bruce. Well not a problem for you but a problem for folks who would rather have a different retail experience. I mean, the folks who like to shop at places like Borders and Walmart certainly are getting what they want. Unfortunately, it seems clear that the big chains *are* what most people want since they are the stores that are still in business and nice little retail outlets with the helpful and oddly dedicated staff are going out of business left and right. The fact is though that for some items, price is the number one concern to me. I dont care how charming a record store or book store is, if I can get the same book across the street at a big chain, I am going to the big chain. Since I work for Borders and get a rather nice discount, I havent bought a book or cd anyplace else since I started working here. I like charming little stores but I guess I dont value them enough to pay the extra money to shop there.
bingo!
McNally> I would dispute that the diversity of music is diminishing. If you compared the diversity of music available today to that available 20, then 40, then 60, then 80, then 100 years ago, I doubt you could make that claim easily. Music styles change. Sometimes we don't happen to like the changes. That doesn't mean that it's less diverse, it means that the portion of it that we happen to like is smaller. As for the elitist thing, why is there anything WRONG about being elitist? I just want John to admit as much. =} I'm an elitist about things other than music, and actually, I'm something of a pop music elitist. DBratman> It's not splitting hairs to point out that "appalling" carries a value judgment. It does. Refer to the last paragraph. If the general claim is, classical music aside, it's sad that the will of the masses overpowers that of the music lover, fine -- that's an elitist statement that says that the masses wouldn't know good music if it bit them on the butt. Given that Backstreet Boys, Dixie Chicks, and Britney Spears all went diamond last year (and Kid Rock nearly did), it's true. It's still elitist. =} (And I *like* Kid Rock.)
Ann Arbor also no longer has a classical music radio station. Is this also because the classical music lovers here all have computers and are listening online instead? Just like they are said to be ordering online?
No, that's because everyone who used to listen to classical music in their car fell asleep at the wheel. ;}
Most NPR stations seem to play classical music for most of the day, here...
The Ann Arbor NPR station switched from classical music to talk a few years ago. Last I checked (which has admittedly been at least seven months), there were still three classical stations that could be gotten in Ann Arbor: WGTE in Toledo, WKAR in East Lansing, and CBET in Windsor. Detroit had only one: CBET.
That's still correct, AFAIK. We (in Milan, near A2) listen to all 3 of those.
The elitist thing is a problem. One side contends that pop music
appeals to listeners with crappy taste. People who wear expensive
understated clothes and live in tastefully decorated houses will listen
to the musical equivalent of a polyester leisure suit in a trailer
park. People who pride themselves on dining on gourmet food will do so
while listening to the musical equivalent of a Big Mac. If there's
good and bad this, why not good and bad that? As soon as you admit
that one kind of *anything* is better than another, you've enabled me
to say the classical music is better than pop music. If you disagree,
it's because you literally don't know any better.
The other side contends that it's all just a matter of taste, and that
one kind of music can't possibly be intrinsically better than another.
How can it? It's all just notes on a page. Are you seriously saying
that the notes on a page of classical music are somehow more moral or
more politically correct than the notes on a page of pop music? That
sitting through a Bach cantata makes me a better person that listening
to a Beatles song?
The flaw in the first ("absolutist") position is that if you can say
classical is better than pop, then I can say that pop is better than
classical. I assure you, my reasons for believing so are every bit as
valid as yours. Try me and see. The flaw in the relativist position
is that no one is really a relativist when it comes to their own likes
and dislikes. The same people who say that classical music is no
better than pop music because no one kind of music can be intrinsically
superior to another will also say, often in the next breath, that (for
example) Britney Spears' music is inferior to Tori Amos' music.
Sometimes they'll even react like, "Oh please. This is a completely
different matter." In other words, the relativists tend to be flaming
hypocrites.
I feel like I've just been deconstructed.
There are non-aesthetic grounds for classifying neurological stimuli, actually, so there's an objective scale for qualifying music, but (a) that's very rarely what anyone means when they say "this music is good"; (b) neurological stimuli effects are most likely fairly minor when compared to environmentally-learned effects; and (c) I'm not aware of many studies on the innate human neurological effects of music. Oh yeah, and (d), such effects would mostly likely apply more to performance (tempo, type of instruments, agressiveness of play) than to composition. [most>most] I do recall reading of one study where various genres of music were played to groups to see what the effects would be, and C&W yieled more aggressive behavior than any other genre, but I rather suspect that's environemtally learned behavior. Beyond that, aesthetics ARE socially determined. What's interesting about aesthetic sensibilities, though, is that they rarely match what the masses enjoy. Is it the case that the masses eat Big Macs instead of filet mignon because they can't afford the latter, or because they honestly prefer the former (on a hedonist, is not aesthetic, level)? Surely much of it is expense, butI daresay many McDonald's haunters would stick with their Big Macs, even if given a choice. If this is so -- and if Britney Spears sells more albums than [insert folk/classical musician here] -- then why do the BRITNEY SPEARS fans, by and large, think of classical music as being "higher" in intrinisic quality than what they listen to (and many of them do)? That's what I see as an interesting social effect, and one that's been around for a long while (centuries, if not longer) -- it's not surprising that DSO fans would see Spears as being poor quality, but it's surprising (to me) that many Spears fans would rank Spears as low quality, aesthetically... "... oh yeah, it's ham, but she means every word in a ten minute ballad of despair ... " (Soft Cell, L'Esqualita) If you THINK it's crap, why consume it? Either you don't think you yourself deserve any better (which explains the popularity of the Dummies and Complete Idiots books), or you don't really think it's crap but you don't have the verbal concepts to debate with someone who does, and you're learned not to even bother. After all, the aesthetes have a lengthy dialogue about what makes art good or bad; how can you, the lowly pubescent who still interjects "like" five times in every sentence, hope to compete with that?
(as if Ken wasn't feeling deconstructed enough... he slipped in).
I like both kinds of music...country *and* western!
Some of the Dummies books are well written and are aimed not at stupid people but at ignorant people. Maybe classical music requires more training to appreciate it. I have heard lots of bad classical music and some good pop music.
People are capable of recognizing more than one kind of "better". Lots of people who personally enjoy listening to Britney Spears (and generally bathing in her aura and associating with other fans) may still recognize that in terms of impressing people in society in general presenting yourself as a Britney Spears fan is not going to win you as much prestige as presenting yourself as a classical fan, or afficiado of Neo-Sino-Jamacian Elbow Jazz Septets. And awful lot of "better" is "more prestigious" and I think that that is much more strongly culturally determined than "it makes me happy when I hear it" and much more widely agreed upon. Music assoicated with disadvantaged social groups (teenagers and hicks, for two) is broadly disdained. (On the other hand, its fashionable for the elite to like black music, so jazz has been co-opted and blacks had to invent a whole new kind of music (rap) to make sure they wouldn't be mistaken for rich white socialites.)
Paul Kershaw #87 wrote: "It's not splitting hairs to point out that "appalling" carries a value judgment. It does." And "disappointing" also carries a value judgment. The hair-splitting criticism of John was for saying "appalling" rather than "disappointing" (actual example offered in the critique). Bruce #84 wrote: "once you have The New World Symphony in your collection, you are not going to have to replace it very often." That depends on what kind of classical collector you are. I know people who really do insist on getting all the recordings, though they're considered a little odd. A large part of the late 80s-90s classical boom consisted of people replacing their LPs with CDs. Both of which examples rather prove the point. McNally #80 wrote: "It's clearly apparent to anyone who cares about music that the diversity of music being recorded is declining substantially in conjunction with modern music marketing and retail trends." That depends entirely on where you shop. (And on what you define as the golden age of diverse music, I suppose.) Michael Delizia #93 wrote: "The other side contends that it's all just a matter of taste, and that one kind of music can't possibly be intrinsically better than another. How can it? It's all just notes on a page. Are you seriously saying that the notes on a page of classical music are somehow more moral or more politically correct than the notes on a page of pop music? That sitting through a Bach cantata makes me a better person that listening to a Beatles song?" The flaw in that argument is not that nobody is a perfect relativist, it's that those are really anemic and comically utilitarian ways of judging the relative value of art. More aesthetically valid methods should not be hard to think of.
You wouldn't think so.
There's a third alternative to the two that Michael Deliza mentions in #93. It's possible to be an absolutist when discussing two examples of the same genre, but a relativist when discussing two different genres. This lets you say things like "The Beatles are a great pop band" and "Johnny Cash is a great country singer." and even "Garth Brooks is a decent pop singer, but a terrible country musician" without needing to have an opinion about whether pop is _better_ than country. The idea here would be something like this: a genre of music is essentially a _set of criteria_ for what makes good music. So rather than saying "classical music is music with lots of violins" and "punk is loud fast music with drums and guitars" [both too simple], you say "good classical music should have an interesting structure and be performed with clean tone" and "good punk should be simple and catchy, with a solid beat and lots of energy" [still both too simple]. The catch is, these criteria are almost all unconscious, especially in non-classical music. So-called "simple" music, like punk or blues, often has very subtle criteria that aren't easy to explain. After all, if blues really was as simple as people who don't like it claim, you'd expect anybody with a year of guitar lessons behind them to be able to play good blues. Instead, it takes years and years of careful listening and practice to get beyond "godawful" and into "mediocre," and even the so-called simple blues fans will know right away when a musician doesn't have it. (Same thing with punk, actually -- most of the punk fans I know think most of the punk bands out there are terrible, and only really respect the top few).
In the age of vinyl, I can see where a classical music fan would replace the same work in their collection with a newer album. Some from the skill of musicianship improved. Most from the improved fidelity and recording techniques. That, and the fact that a vinyl LP played for 5 years does wear out, where a CD can stay in near new condition when the collector puts very little effort into it.
Read some of the audio newsgroups on USENET and you'll get the impression that many classical fans don't believe in CDs...
Yeah, and some people still think equipment with tubes sound better. Right, Scott? :)
Well, yes, to the extent that some folks prefer truly antique triode designs using directly-heated cathodes. I'm finding I care less and less these days about tubes, although my little guitar amp still uses them.
I think it makes a difference in guitar amps, where you're routinely (and intentionally) driving the devices into distortion. In a hi-fi amp, the circuits should be designed so you never get anywhere near those regions of the tube or transistor curves, so there's not much difference in sound -- other than lower hum levels in transistor gear.
David Brodbeck is right: many classical fans actually do despise CDs. And there are markets to cater to them: I have seen new high-end classical LPs for sale as recently as last year. The used classical recording collectors' market is still over 90% LPs, and half of the reset is reel-to-reel tapes. Many other classical fans, however, flocked to CDs in droves, much to the disgust of the LP purist minority. That certainly was a major component of the classical CD boom, which was the original point. Orinoco is also right: it's always easier to compare apples to apples. But then, of course, there are those who insist a Red Delicious can't be compared to a Pippin, and so on and so on. I find this in discussing fantasy literature a lot: people say a book must be judged on its own terms, but then in practice they'll define "its own terms" as "whatever it takes to define this book as good." Granted that "classical music should have an interesting structure" is too simple a definition, there is still classical music that deliberately dispenses with interesting structure, and claims that it's good on different terms. If Michael Delizia's cryptic #101 means he thinks I should do his job for him and post a list of aesthetically valid ways to judge music, he is mistaken.
(#100> You'll note I didn't claim that "disappointing" doesn't carry a value judgment. The implication -- if I didn't say it -- is that "appalling" carries a stronger and more patronizing judgment than "disppointing." Cf: "I'm appalled at your behavior." vs. "I'm disappointed at your behavior." Sure, both imply that you shouldn't be behaving in such a manner, but [to my ear, at least] the latter implies a personal expectation and that latter, a social expectation rooted in personal opinion. But that *is* splitting hairs, which is why I took "disappointing" off the later list... it was an implicit concession on that term.)
I have no problem at all with brighn being appauled at John having used the word appauled. It simply adds to the enjoyment of this fine item.
Yeah, but I imagine that's because you know I'm just goofin'. =}
Paul: The difference between the value judgment carried by "appalling" and the value judgment carried by "disappointing" is a good example of what I was calling hair-splitting. That one is stronger than the other is undeniable. But to condemn John for using the first, while actually recommending the second as a replacement, is ... putting a giant moral difference on a relatively tiny distinction. In other words, hair- splitting. IMGDAO.
Eh, so I retract "disappointig" as a suggestion. *shrug*
I'm appalled that this discussion is going on so long.
But you shouldn't be shocked. =}
Nah, I think we, or at least I know you a little better than that, to be shocked by it
re #115: Perhaps we shouldn't me, but nonetheless I am shocked, shocked! to find nit-picking taking place in an on-line discussion..
heaven forfend!
115s/me/be/
TV's got them images TV's got them all Nothing's shocking *slow dirgelike bass lick* Everybody everybody everybody-y-y-y-y Nothing's shocking
Jane's Addiction?
Hey, speaking of snide songs written about specific people (see the Stupid Music Item, or whatever it's called)... yeah, Jane's Addiction's "Ted, Just Admit It," a paean of sorts to Ted Bundy.
I'd already left Ann Arbor by the time Schoolkids closed, but on the occasions I was back in town I generally gravitated toward Schoolkids- in-exile rather than the expanded SKR store. Still, this is saddening. Anyone know when it was that Borders expanded? I too used to really like going there, and don't really anymore... It's strange now, living in a smaller town where there aren't a lot of chain stores. I find that I don't really miss them, and am glad to be able to shop in the independent places in town, but at times it seems like my little corner of the world is cut off from the rest of America.
Just to throw an anecdote against the "Borders is now crap" tide: A couple weeks ago I was in Borders looking for Astor Piazzolla CDs. The guy at the info counter was a classic, wearing a beard and a beret and in his 40's or so. He dug around in the racks and under the racks, finally finding that the labels on the racks were off a bit. Definitely knew what and where to look, which was encouraging. Not all the true Borders employees are gone, it seems. On the other hand, I don't feel that confident about the people in the computer section. It's interesting that while Borders has had computer terminals for lookups for many years (I remember them from high school visits, back in the early 80's), only recently have the things become available to customers to use.
Borders is leading the way in this "Turn the tube around" technology. The realization that many customers are computer/keyboard & mouse savy has brought about the new Title Sleuth stations.
Which is a shame in my opinion, because you have employee's who don't have to do it, and you put the responsibility on the customer. Just like in libraries. Anyone with young kids in school, do they still learn the card catalogue?
What's the point of learning the card catalog? In a few years, that will be like learning to use a slide rule.
what's wrong with the customer taking responsibility? i like the title sleuth...and if you want *great and knowledgable special helpers* to work at borders then they should pay a liveable wage.
Actually it doesnt put the responsibility on the customers, it just gives them another option. I have never had any trouble getting a staff at a Borders to help me find a book.
But Barry is right of course, if you want *really* good special helpers at a bookstore, the company would have to pay them more which means that you and everyone else would have to pay more for books. I think American consumers as a group have generally chosen price over service.
No, dammit, we want low prices AND service. Actually, we tend to prioritize thus: Brand, quality, service, price. Otherwise CostCo and Sam's Club would be packed, and Kroger's would be empty. Granted, there's a subculture who emphasize price over service, but mostly because they ain't got no money. Also, brand is most important, which is the major explanation of why Harmony House is still in business... they prices are high, their service is mediocre, and their quality is slightly above average.
So what do you suppose makes Wal-Mart the biggest retailer in the US? Their service or quality? Places like Costco and Sam's Club are only cheaper for certain people. For other people, the prices are lower at Krogers. All that Wal-Mart's brand name does for them is tell shoppers that if they come in, no matter where they are in the US, they will get crappy service at a low price which is just what many American consumers want. Anyhow, you can keep dreaming about your low prices and good service. It does happen sometimes. Just recently I went to Roy's Squeeze Inn on Michigan Ave for some cheap grub and was very impressed by the service I got.
Oh, I don't know. Maybe yo're right. But my version looked so much better on paper. *shrug*
Wal-Mart is in the smaller cities. you won't see Sam's or Costco in Plainwell Michigan (bonus points if you know where this is, other than me) and in other larger cities too. They claim all markets not just the ones likely to give them a profit. From what I remember of the exam at the "old" borders to get a job, they're HARD. They looked for a particular calibur of employee. Perhaps that has changed.
It has. One advantage of non-corporate stores have in the labor market is that a lot of people would rather work in them. They often can pay the going equilibrium wage and get a higher caliber of employee. Once Borders became corporate, they lost that advantage and abandoned the test most likely because they were having trouble hiring people.
wha? I'm not getting your inference. It was still that way when I worked at thier corp office. that was 97.
I dont know the reason they stopped giving the test but I am pretty sure that unless they wanted to pay the clerks at teh downtown Borders store more than what they are paying say the clerks at Waldenbooks, they had to ditch the test. I am sure a lot of that is because of the disadvantages of working in a corporate environment.
Sams is owned by WalMart. Which adds nothing to the discussion, I just felt like pointing it out.
Find, lead to drift. Why can't you ever stay on topic, like me?
Well, I know the guy in the black beret at Borders Downtown (not by name, but he's very nice, and helps when I ask him, but he's not very good at folk music...), but it still really bugs me that the Borders Downtown has a *smaller* Celtic/British music section than the Borders at Arborland! There's no reason that a mall store should have a better and bigger selection than the flagship store, is there? The clerks at Borders Arborland seem a bit less than knowledgable, but they DO try to answer questions and look things up. It's rapidly becoming true that I go there when I want to buy music. This is scary to me.
Yes, there is a reason why a mall store would have a bigger and better selection than the flagship store. Obviously they have found that Celtic /British music sells better at Arborland.
hahahahaha....DUH!!!
:P~~~
Also, regardless of why it happens, it's nice to have different locations with different emphases. One of the Standard Complaints against corporate bookshops is that you see the exact same selection everywhere.
I am split. I don't consider the downtown sstore to be the first anymore, becuase while they increased in size, I think it lost some of the charm it had in the old location. But the reason I'll check out Arborland now, rather than going downtown, parking. period.
Actually parking isnt so bad at the downtown store because one can park in the garage on Maynard and have the parking validated. I usually end up going to the Arborland store or Waldenbooks in Briarwood although for different reasons. I like Arborland because it is closer to Ypsi. Briarwood is close to work and I can have them special order a book for me if I dont need it right away and because I have access to the Waldenbooks SPO system at work, I can track it too. I suppose I could even just order the book myself but I dont want to mess up whatever system they have. heh.
I like the downtown store because I don't have to park (or drive) to get there when I'm in Ann Arbor.
I like them because they are open after the public library closes.
It seems kind of odd to me to complain about the effect of the acquisition upon Borders and about the music selection in the same response, as I can't remember the old-school style Borders even having a CD department.
re 145: You SPOoged a book?
148: They didn't. That's part of the corp idea for the "new" stores.
That's what I thought..
haha. I am going to start calling WaldenSpo WaldenSPOoge.
If i'm looking for a nice non-big-chain really-know-their-stuff music store to buy occasional classical, jazz, etc. CD's in within half an hour of Ann Arbor, then i'm out of luck, right?
Yep. It's appalling.
What do you expect of a town where the nearest classical radio station is 60 miles away?
It's simple: work up a plan, submit it to the SBA, get a nice fat loan, open up your own non-big-chain really-know-their-stuff music store right there in the middle of fabulous downtown Ann Arbor, and watch the money roll in. You'd the the only one within 60 miles, how could you fail?
resp:153 :: for occasional jazz purchases from an independent store, there is still Schoolkids-in-Exile, in the basement under Bivouac on State Street. For an independent store with a decent selection of classical music? It's not just that I can't think of one close to Ann Arbor: I can't think of one period. There must be a couple left in North America somewhere. It's not just in Ann Arbor where the independent CD sellers are being crushed. Somewhat outside your 30-minute radius is the Harmony House Classical store in Royal Oak. Harmony House is a local chain, and that's the best I can suggest. Your only other choices: buy used classical discs at Encore Music, or else make your peace with the Borders chain or one of the online retailers. I don't have the article immediately available to me, but there was a statistic (I think I quoted it in earlier responses) that classical and jazz sales make up about a third of online CD sales, as against perhaps 5-7% of instore sales.
Might this be because classical listeners have already heard the piece and don't have to go to some local store to find out what they are buying? (Or because they are more familiar with online buying?).
While at Borders Downtown, I overheard a customer say to one
of our employees he was pleased to see the employee got work after
SKR classical. Some of the knowledge base may have gone across the
street.
Of course, it is so easy to buy Britney Spears at K-Mart or
Wall Mart, and very difficult to get classical or jazz at those 2.
K-Mart had two or three CDs in the section labelled classical, I think they were collections of excerpts.
md in resp:156 :: being the only classical music store within 60 miles doesn't work any more. In the Observer, Jim Leonard said that he used to have a large base of distant customers who made approximately monthly pilgrimages to SKR Classical, and weekends were the store's busiest times. But in the last couple of years, most of those far-away customers switched over to the online retailers so they could avoid the drive, and weekends became SKR Classical's quietest times. sindi in resp:158 :: I believe that what's left of the classical and jazz business is moving to the online stores because of inventory issues. Unlike pop music which is mostly economically driven by large quantities of a small number of discs, a good classical or jazz store has to stock small quantities of large numbers of discs. This sort of an inventory problem is best handled by a large national online store because the online store has many more customers and thus has less of a problem trying match obscure discs with buyers. (I'm not explaining this well, oh well.) There was a recent online essay somewhere discussing how amazon.com had a minor hit with the Ken Burns Jazz series, and how everyone had been forgetting that Internet e-commerce was supposed to be all about niche marketing, and not selling more N*Sync discs.
Re resp:161 2nd paragraph: That makes a lot of sense, and I think you explained it quite well. My current musical interest is ragtime, which is about as nichey as you can get. Traditional retail music stores tend to carry almost none of it - maybe a couple of Scott Joplin CD's and that's it. But there are a number of ragtime performers, and they put out CD's, which are easy to find and purchase online.
make pilgrimage to elderly music, k?
I did that last week, hap. But it's not really a "pilgrimage" for me, since I work just across town from Elderly. Elderly Instruments, the folk music specialist in Lansing, is an interesting case. They've had a sizable mail order operation for maybe 25 years, and in the last couple of years they have moved onto the web in a very classy way -- see http://www.elderly.com. As far as I can tell, they are the largest folk music discounters in the country, with many labels priced at $12.50 and almost nothing priced over $15. So essentially they are a national retailer who, through the accidents of history and geography, just happen to have their one storefront outlet in Michigan.
Maybe a springtime Grexpedition to Elderly is in order some late April weekend maybe?
grexers are not allowed there.
Neither are Jews, Barry.
quit jewing me you dirdee wop.
Eh Gianni Schichi shutta you face. Lees I dona preten I'ma notta woppa.
Re resp:163 - Does Elderly carry ragtime CD's? I must admit that on my one visit to Elderly -- five or six years ago -- I did find a ragtime folio that I hadn't seen elsewhere.
I'd be very, very, very surprised if they didn't carry ragtime. At a guess, with a far better selection than most stores - but possibly not much that you wouldn't already have access to, John. I think I have a fairly recent recordings catalog, & will check if I can remember when I'm at home, & email you. But you might well want to try their web site. I haven't used it (lynx being my sole web browser), but I've heard it's very good (as krj just said).
I'm not finding any ragtime CDs on the Elderly web site listings.
i don't pretend that i'm not a jew, mike. THAT WAS VERY MEAN.
[hangs head in shame]
you should be 'shamed. :P~~~
[Just kidding. Barry.]
it's to late, deliza, my heart is broked.
A search of Elderly's web site brought up some CD's, but not very many. I found the classic "Red Back Book" album of orchestral arrangements of Scott Joplin Rags; "Grace and Beauty" with the New Orleans Ragtime Orchesta; Butch Thompson performing Scott Joplin; some Jelly Roll Morton recordings; Joshua Rifkin's classic Joplin recordings from the 70's; a small handful of other CD's of possible interest. I found nothing at all by the many excellent artists that I hear at the ragtime festivals I attend, even though they produce CD's. Nothing by Scott Kirby (possibly the foremost interpreter of Scott Joplin now active), Jeff Barnhart, Bob Milne, Sue Keller, John Arpin, Terry Waldo, Mimi Blais, Dick Zimmerman, The Etcetera String Band, Tony Caramia, Frank French, David Thomas Roberts, etc. etc. etc. I have CD's by all of these folks, purchased at ragtime festivals. I never see them in record stores. Ragtime performing and recording is alive and well, but is largely invisible to all but the most dedicated fans.
The same is generally true of the musical ghettos I move in these days.
You might have better luck looking for personal websites for those performers. Those will probably have CD order forms if they've got CDs out.
Yes indeed, most of them do have websites, and there are other websites from which one can order the CD's. My point was that their material is virtually unavailable from traditional retail outlets.
Oh yeah? Well ... um ... uh ... then you're right.
Same with the funny music artists. Mostly self produced and distributed. Some CDs are burnt 10 at a time. Better than home duped cassettes. Most have web-sites of their own, some use co-operative web distribution also.
---(( this item is now only active in the classical music conference ))--- In the restarted music conference, I put a pointer to the following New York Times article: "Classical Music, Spinning Into Oblivion?" http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/21/arts/music/21TOMM.html
((Oops, miswrote the headline. The article is about the collapse of the classical CD business.))
At least this article addresses 1) the difficulty of browsing online, and 2) the inadequacy of MP3 and any other current downloadable format for classical listeners. I was saying long ago that MP3 may be convenient for some purposes but isn't going to take over, because it provides lousy sound quality, and now I finally find a real article saying the same thing.
I'm duplicating things because there is no linked retail item between the Classical and current Music conferences. Gramophone's web site reports that Nimbus Records has gone into receivership. Their spokesman said they could not operate further after the collapse of US consumer confidence following the September 11 attacks. Nimbus' UK business included providing distribution for several small independent labels. Another UK distributor has closed recently and yet another one is expected to fold.
I'll utilize this item again to distribute some news to the classical music conference. WWJ-AM reported this morning that the Harmony House retail chain is shutting down. Some stores will close next week, others will close in the fall. Someone with more time and initiative than I have at the moment might wish to contact the Royal Oak classical store and find out details about the going-out-of-business sale; it's likely to be the last great classical going-out-of-business sale ever to be seen around Michigan.
Today's Free Press web site reports that Harmony House has raised the discount at their remaining stores, including the Royal Oak classical store, to 40%. They'd like to get rid of all the merchandise by the end of September.
Excuse me, but I am feeling slightly dazed at the moment. I have seen the past of classical music retailing. It still exists somewhere, and the where is Portland, Oregon. On East Burnside Street is a store called Classical Millennium. Those of you with long memories, which I'd guess is everyone here, will remember the great specialty classical stores of the later LP era, with hundreds or thousands of selections, separated by white plastic cards into tiny distinct categories, one for each minor composer (no "L miscellaneous"), a dozen or more for major composers, divided by genre and even individual work. I hadn't seen a store with that kind of selection, and that kind of care in laying it out, since before the end of the LP era. I have now. Wow. And several customers around on a quiet Sunday afternoon last week. I left with 6 items, several of which I'd never actually seen before, and did I ever have to prune to get down that low.
wow... <trying not to salivate> too bad I don't have any plans in the foreseeable future to head to portland...
(classical conference only) Harmony House had a rally, but it looks like it's over. I have a hot rumor that what's left of Harmony House has been sold to Trans World, whoever they are. Harmony House's web page is gone, and the Google cache version says that the Classical store on Woodward is to close. That google cache page has a Sept. 27 date on it.
Yeah, it's gone. The few remaining CDs have been moved to the Harmony House down the street. Don't know how much longer that one will last.
"what's left ... has been sold to Trans World, whoever they are." Didn't they use to be an airline? <g> I wish someone would invent a way to browse online stores' inventory that was as easy as flicking through the CDs in a rack - or, better yet, the LPs, because those you could turn over and read the liner notes. If that could be done, I wouldn't miss the death of retail stores so much. But every system I've seen online is hideously clumsy and awkward.
You have several choices: