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Grex > Music2 > #263: despite that pithy undertow, all is as it should be. |  |
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| 25 new of 80 responses total. |
eeyore
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response 4 of 80:
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Jun 29 03:59 UTC 2000 |
Uhhh....massive drift, but....
"establishment formerly known as Tower Records"????
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otaking
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response 5 of 80:
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Jun 29 04:02 UTC 2000 |
Unfortunately, it's true. Tower Records closed on Sunday afternoon.
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eeyore
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response 6 of 80:
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Jun 29 04:11 UTC 2000 |
AAAACCCKKKKK!!!!! What happened?
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gelinas
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response 7 of 80:
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Jun 29 04:14 UTC 2000 |
From the discussion in the Spring agora, the chain didn't think the store
was getting enough foot traffic, so they closed it. I noticed today that
the Burger King was cleaned out, too.
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krj
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response 8 of 80:
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Jun 29 04:50 UTC 2000 |
Megan: for more on the demise of Tower, see item 154 in Music conference,
starting with response #199. (resp:music,154,199 is a valid link I hope)
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scg
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response 9 of 80:
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Jun 29 06:52 UTC 2000 |
Burger King was gone while I was still in Ann Arbor. Tower closed soemtime
after I left, I think.
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lelande
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response 10 of 80:
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Jun 29 07:05 UTC 2000 |
resp:2
cobol. i can't get past the tanks on cobol.
fortunately for me tron isn't too popular a game, so retaining my self-applied
'tron king of ann arbor' title isn't too difficult. as long as i can beat my
old high score each time i sit down for a session, i'm happy.
more than anything i'm happy they fixed the joystick. it's *really* hard to
play tron when you can't move to the right.
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senna
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response 11 of 80:
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Jun 29 07:18 UTC 2000 |
How long can pinball pete's possibly last in that location? Where is the Tron
machinae, anyway?
That whole area is taking quite a hit. I hope Jimmy John's sticks around.
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lelande
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response 12 of 80:
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Jun 29 07:23 UTC 2000 |
yeah. with the parking garage dusted south u's gonna be in sad shape.
tron is way in the back, behind all the air hockey tables.
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k8
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response 13 of 80:
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Jun 29 08:11 UTC 2000 |
That mall is the kiss of death.
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gypsi
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response 14 of 80:
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Jun 29 08:24 UTC 2000 |
I love air hockey!!!
Well, after six you can park in the structure on Church St. Or you could
park in the structure at Thompson and walk across the Diag... that's what
I do during the day when Church is permit only.
Oh wait...some people loathe fresh air and walking...
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danr
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response 15 of 80:
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Jun 29 11:13 UTC 2000 |
That's interesting about Tower Records. Schoolkid's couldn't make it,
WhereHouse is gone, and it looks like SKR's cutting way back. Are people not
buying records anymore or have they just gotten too expensive?
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mary
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response 16 of 80:
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Jun 29 11:30 UTC 2000 |
I've only purchased maybe 3 CDs in the last year but they all came from
amazon.com. I'm usually looking for a recording of a specific somewhat
obscure piece, not just browsing. Online I can find it quickly, hear
parts of the movements, and buy it with one click and it shows up in my
mailbox maybe three days later.
In the past I would have had to visit the store, have staff look it up in
the catalogue, have it maybe arrive (at the store) two weeks later, and
buy it without having heard it.
I can't be the only person who has been seduced by the service and
convenience. My question is how far will this style of shopping go? In
the future will there be fewer malls because of online buying?
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cyklone
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response 17 of 80:
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Jun 29 12:12 UTC 2000 |
A pre-Napster study of buying habits in college towns showed a significant
decline beginning a year or two before Napster.
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jmsaul
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response 18 of 80:
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Jun 29 13:09 UTC 2000 |
...which is generally attributed, by everybody except Metallica's legal team,
to the availability of e-commerce sites like Amazon.
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krj
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response 19 of 80:
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Jun 29 13:17 UTC 2000 |
Heh, this will turn into another music retail item and I will have to
link it to the music conference. :/
The Recording Industry Association of America says CD sales are up, up,
up, in the aggregate. I don't fully understand what's hit Ann Arbor;
3.5 CD retailing failures downtown in two years, destroying Ann Arbor's
preeminent position as a CD shopping town. (As a serious CD addict,
I'm *really* upset about this.) East Lansing also lost
a Where House store, leaving the Tower there with a MSU campus monopoly.
I have never seen a shakeout like this, not even in the recession of
the early 1980s.
Ann Arbor was way overbuilt for CD retailing. Since 1991: Tower
came into the market; Schoolkids doubled its space; Borders went into
CD selling; Tower doubled its space; Media Play moved in; and nobody
went out of business. Square footage devoted to CD retail went up by
a factor of 4 or 5, by my eyeball estimates, just in the downtown stores.
Best Buy and Media Play have probably cut into sales at the downtown stores.
Maybe there is something to the theory that college students have
shifted to free illicit MP3s, though the Soundscan study is deeply
flawed: as Cyklone points out, that study attempts to blame Napster
for retail declines which happened before Napster existed, and it does
not control for shifts to mega-retailers.
Internet shopping? In the aggregate it's supposed to be only a small
percentage of the sales, but it's probably higher in a well-networked
university town. I've moved more and more of my shopping to net
retailers, mostly because the obscure stuff I want no longer comes in
to Ann Arbor. But the news stories are reporting that the two biggest
online CD retailers, Amazon and CD Now, are losing money and cannot
continue much longer. CD Now was the star of the Barrons' "deathwatch
list" of about 50 online retailers expected to run out of cash in 2000,
and yesterday's news everywhere included stories about Amazon running
out of cash within 4 quarters unless a miracle happens. The Washington
Post went so far as to run a story yesterday about how customers and
competitors feel about the prospect of life after Amazon.com.
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krj
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response 20 of 80:
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Jun 29 13:19 UTC 2000 |
I forgot that I meant to add: The Ann Arbor Tower had two local issues:
its parking garage was demolished at the end of 1999, and the University
of Michigan was willing to bid high for the space. My guess is that
UM intends to take the entire Galleria building.
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realtao
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response 21 of 80:
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Jun 29 13:26 UTC 2000 |
Another factor in downtown CD sales is Borders Books and Music.
These days, I've bought my CDs only from Borders (downtown and
Arborland locations).
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jerryr
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response 22 of 80:
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Jun 29 13:46 UTC 2000 |
i used to haunt wazoo for cd's. it was worth the parking hassle. but since
i have fleshed out my cd collection to replace the lp's that are gathering
dust in my basement, i have had little need or desire for 99% of the new music
being sold today. not my generation. it's as it should be. my last two cd
purchases (santanna and crosby, still, nash and young) i bought thru
amazon.com. i have no theory as to why a town saturated with young people
has had so many store closings other than to echo the "net connected" theory.
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krj
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response 23 of 80:
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Jun 29 18:24 UTC 2000 |
If you don't need 99% of the new music being sold today, then you
should still be buying about one CD per week. My vague recollection
is that there are about 5000 CDs released every year, so you need
about 50 of them. :)
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scott
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response 24 of 80:
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Jun 29 18:27 UTC 2000 |
I found that Borders is the place for semi-obscure stuff. I'd try to buy it
SKR, but they usually didn't have it. Really obscure stuff comes from
artist's sites on the Web.
Note that the Arborland Borders has sucky selection compared to the downtouwn
A2 store.
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jerryr
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response 25 of 80:
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Jun 29 19:01 UTC 2000 |
re: #23 heh, ok, let me put it another way instead of using a figure of
speech. i don't want or need just about every music cd being released or
having been released in the last five years. and even the ones i want or need
i don't want or need. except for the ones i do.
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edina
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response 26 of 80:
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Jun 29 19:48 UTC 2000 |
Thanks for being clear.
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gypsi
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response 27 of 80:
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Jun 29 20:44 UTC 2000 |
Tower and Borders were/are too expensive. I get mine over Ebay or at used
cd stores.
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jerryr
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response 28 of 80:
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Jun 29 22:14 UTC 2000 |
re; #26 at last. someone who understands me.
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