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| Author |
Message |
| 25 new of 106 responses total. |
mcnally
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response 28 of 106:
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Jul 1 05:50 UTC 2001 |
I went out record shopping yesterday with a walletful of cash,
determined to buy several albums I'd borrowed from the library
and enjoyed.. I found several of the albums I'd intended to
pick up, as well as several other interesting-looking possibilities,
but I wound up leaving the store empty-handed -- I just couldn't
bring myself to pay what the store was asking for the CDs.
The least-expected I'd selected was priced at $16.99, and a couple
of my selections were $18.99 for a single new CD. If I'd gone to
a store like Best Buy instead of the independent record store at
which I'd been shopping, I probably could have saved a dollar or
two per disc, but I doubt I could've brought myself to buy most of
my selections even at a "mere" $15.99 per CD. The area where I live
in Washington state has an 8.6% sales tax, so a $17.99 CD costs me
almost $20.00 total..
Back when new CDs were routinely priced in the $11.99 - $12.99 range,
I used to go to the record store and come home with 7 or 8 new purchases
every couple of weeks. It wasn't unusual for me to buy 100 to 150 new
records a year in those days. Nowadays, though, I can't clearly remember
the last time I left a record store with more than three full-length
releases, and I've probably purchased less than 20 new albums so far this
year. It's true that my purchases have slowed partly because I've already
collected a lot of the albums I wanted, but even these days, when I rarely
try out new artists because I don't want to take a $20 gamble, there's
still a backlog of music on my "I really ought to buy that.." list.
At the current rate, however, most of the entries on that list are going
to remain there indefinitely. If the RIAA wants to know why record sales
are dropping, my best guess is that they're pricing most people out of
trying new music..
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krj
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response 29 of 106:
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Jul 1 15:04 UTC 2001 |
Not directly related, but I did want to mention it: amazon.com seems to
have moved to selling most CDs at list price. They proudly mention
that they are throwing in free shipping on most orders, though.
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krj
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response 30 of 106:
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Jul 1 15:37 UTC 2001 |
From the June 15th promotional e-mail from the NorthSide label, which
specializes in issuing Scandinavian folk & folk-related music for the
North American market:
> At the same time, we're dealing with growing problems
> at U.S. record retail, so unless you're one of the
> lucky few that has a great independent record store
> in your town, be sure to visit our website often
> and take advantage of our secure server to buy direct.
They did not elaborate on what those problems were.
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ashke
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response 31 of 106:
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Jul 1 17:56 UTC 2001 |
No wonder I stopped buying albums. I went and bought a few at Best Buy,
becuase they were on sale having just come out (one of them being Exciter by
Depeche mode) and one that managed to be $6.99 (A band called Saliva) and was
thrilled and had to put 2 others back but bought 3. I was amazed. A lot of
the releases I want to get, Musicals, old Hair Bands, my eclectic tastes, I
can't. And some wonder why I used Napster. Thpppt. I would buy a LOT more
cd's if they were back around the $10 side rather than the $20 side. A LOT
more.
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bmoran
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response 32 of 106:
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Jul 6 02:12 UTC 2001 |
The new Afro Celt 3 was on the shelf @ Borders for 18.99 last week, so I
added it to my wish list and left. This week it's on sale for 12.99, so I
got it. Whenever I hear something new, I'll almost always try out Encore
Records to see if someone else paid full price and didn't like it. That's
how I got AfroCelt's 2nd disk for 8.00.
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krj
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response 33 of 106:
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Jul 26 21:33 UTC 2001 |
Rotten to the core... An LA Times story, and a NewMediaMusic story
derived from it, reporting allegations that some major labels are
rigging the SoundScan charts:
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-000057351jul13.story
http://www.newmediamusic.com/articles/NM01070298.html
The scam is pretty elementary. The major label hires an independent
promoter. The independent promoter gives a bunch of free promo discs
to a CD store which reports to SoundScan and has the CD store employees
scan the free discs multiple times. The CD store then gets to sell
the free discs at normal price. Since the discs were not bought at
wholesale, the retail price becomes pure profit to the store.
The artist is screwed because, as free promo discs are involved,
no royalties are paid.
Soundscan itself is exasperated. "'The labels pay us to run a system
that delivers an accurate sales count,' (soundscan exec) Shalett said.
'What's the point of them paying somebody else to mess
with it? It's insane.'"
NewMediaMusic suggests that the scam is motivated by internal record
company politics; people who stand to be fired if a release they are
responsible for performs poorly.
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orinoco
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response 34 of 106:
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Jul 26 21:38 UTC 2001 |
Curiouser and curiouser....
I've given up on thinking that any given development will be the last straw
that will turn people against the music industry: there have been far too many
last straws already, and we're apathetic and cranky, but we still buy from
them. Still, I'd have fun following this if it became a big scandal; I'm
rooting for it just for that.
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dbratman
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response 35 of 106:
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Jul 27 16:44 UTC 2001 |
Options for obtaining music from somewhere other than "the music
industry" (a pretty broad term) are currently somewhat limited, and
require some hefty searching and self-starting. Sure, folks tried to
bypass it, but ...
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orinoco
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response 36 of 106:
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Aug 18 18:28 UTC 2001 |
The State Street Harmony House in Ann Arbor seems to have bitten, or to be
in the act of biting, the dust. They have a 'for rent' sign in their window.
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tpryan
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response 37 of 106:
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Aug 19 15:49 UTC 2001 |
So State Street is where the Harmoney House was hidding?
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krj
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response 38 of 106:
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Aug 20 16:37 UTC 2001 |
Yeah. I think everyone in the Grex music conference who commented on
the Harmony House store wondered what the heck they thought they were
doing, putting a mall-quality CD store, which could compete on neither
price nor selection, in the State & Liberty area.
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otaking
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response 39 of 106:
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Aug 21 04:05 UTC 2001 |
Yeah. The only time I went to Harmony House to shop was when I was looking
for a "Top 10" soundtrack. I decided after one visit to never shop there
again.
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mcnally
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response 40 of 106:
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Aug 22 10:02 UTC 2001 |
So for those of us who aren't in Ann Arbor any longer but are
still keeping score, what's left?
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scott
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response 41 of 106:
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Aug 22 12:05 UTC 2001 |
Well, now, let's see:
Borders, of course. Discount Records is still standing. There's that weird
used CD place over on the other side of campus with the CDs in the huge locked
glass cases; they sell a fair amount of new CDs. Schoolkids in Exile still
there.
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krj
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response 42 of 106:
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Aug 22 16:52 UTC 2001 |
And Encore, Wazoo and PJs.
I've found that my shopping for new CDs at stores has collapsed.
For new CDs, I'm shopping only at Borders, Elderly Instruments
in Lansing, and very occasionally at Schoolkids-in-the-Basement.
Schoolkids is limited both in stock and in hours open, so I haven't been
going there much.
My rough guess is that I'm buying maybe 1/4 of what I used to buy
in the local new shops. For a lot of what I want, it's not
even worth the time to check Borders: obscure folk/world
and classical CDs just aren't being stocked much in Ann Arbor any more.
I miss being able to wander out either from home or work to browse
through bins of CDs, but it seems that era has ended.
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dbratman
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response 43 of 106:
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Aug 22 21:39 UTC 2001 |
Browsing through web sites just isn't the same.
For that matter, browsing through CDs wasn't the same as browsing
through LPs. Not only was it physically easier to flip through the
LPs, but (at least in classical) they had liner notes on the back that
could help you decide whether to buy something you didn't know.
I've been tempted, on occasion, to slit open CD wrappers in the shop so
as to read the booklet. I'd buy a lot more CDs if I could. In this
respect, the web is a slight improvement. Not much, but a little.
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orinoco
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response 44 of 106:
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Aug 23 17:37 UTC 2001 |
Most used stores let you do just that.
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dbratman
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response 45 of 106:
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Aug 24 16:59 UTC 2001 |
New CDs, Dan, new CDs. Used ones don't even have wrappers.
Some new-CD stores will indeed let you do that. But I can't imagine
making that request of the drones who staff my Tower's classical
department.
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tpryan
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response 46 of 106:
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Aug 24 22:11 UTC 2001 |
Borders has a new, different kind of listening station in
the newly opened stores...a way to listen in a multitude of CDs
from one place, instead of only 5 at a time.
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scott
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response 47 of 106:
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Aug 25 15:30 UTC 2001 |
Van Morrison, "Moondance".
One of the true classics...
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krj
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response 48 of 106:
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Sep 14 02:58 UTC 2001 |
At the Frandor Mall in Lansing yesterday, I unexpectedly stumbled
over a new Michigan Where House Records outlet. (This is the locally-
owned small chain which used to operate campus stores in East Lansing
and Ann Arbor, not the California-based chain with the similar name.)
Alas, it's beyond easy walking distance from my office, but I will
have to stop in there and see if their stock is interesting enough
to merit any business. If anyone is looking for it: the store
is just to the east of Bollert's Ace Hardware.
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krj
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response 49 of 106:
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Oct 21 17:36 UTC 2001 |
View hidden response.
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krj
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response 50 of 106:
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Oct 21 19:13 UTC 2001 |
((I decided to move resp:49 to a different item...))
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krj
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response 51 of 106:
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Oct 25 22:41 UTC 2001 |
East Lansing has a store selling new CDs again, after a dry year.
The Barnes & Noble CD department is probably about as good a CD shop as
East Lansing has ever seen, except for the late lamented Tower.
The classical section is probably less interesting than the old
Michigan Where House classical section at its peak.
What makes it particularly interesting is the new music preview system,
from a company called RedDotNet. They claim that customers can hear
preview samples from any disc in the store, and this seems close to
correct. The headphones are attached to a laser scanner (the Red Dot
of the company name); the customer scans the bar code of any random
CD, and you get a menu of 30-60 second samples from every track on the
disc. My guess is that the samples are MP3 or similar compression.
They are stored centrally, and a clerk told me that updates come from
the Home Office every week or so. The clerk told me that a
prof we know from the Music department spent three hours in the
store on opening night, playing with the preview system.
The system had most of the items I checked, about a dozen.
It had Steeleye Span and a Mahler Resurrection Symphony.
The only discs which did not have preview tracks available were
Sigur Ros, and a duet album from Cecilia Bartoli and
Bryn Terfel.
The East Lansing B&N stores world music alphabetically by artist,
with no geographical divisions, so the Irish nestle up against the
Africans. The world music section is small enough that you could
browse through it all pretty quickly.
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krj
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response 52 of 106:
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Oct 28 05:42 UTC 2001 |
Back in resp:music2,154,217 (music2, item 154, resp 217) I wrote
about the Virgin Megastore on Michigan Avenue. The store was still
pretty appealing when Leslie and I returned there this spring; but
we were there again on Friday, and the store has crashed.
The biggest disappointment was the dismantling of the classical section.
Classical was forced out of its separate room, the one with classical
albums playing in the background; it was shoved in a back corner and
cut by maybe 40%. The old classical music room is now the DVD room.
World music seemed gutted as well; I couldn't find any discs that I wanted.
There were a couple of British Isles/Celtic items worth looking at,
and they were priced at an appealing $14. I settled for the new Kathryn
Tickell CD and passed on the Bachue. And there was a Tracey Dares CD
I had not seen before. But that was it; two CDs bought, and just one
tempation passed up, from a store where previously I had found
armloads of stuff.
The standard price of $18.99 was really putting me off buying anything
which might have been stocked at any other store.
We're unlikely to go out of our way to stop there on our future
Chicago trips.
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