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Grex > Music2 > #291: Music retail again: SKR Uptown (Classical) & Downtown to close |  |
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| 25 new of 194 responses total. |
happyboy
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response 50 of 194:
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Jan 21 15:04 UTC 2001 |
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.
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brighn
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response 51 of 194:
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Jan 21 15:54 UTC 2001 |
#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.
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scott
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response 52 of 194:
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Jan 21 16:37 UTC 2001 |
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...
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md
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response 53 of 194:
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Jan 21 16:59 UTC 2001 |
U-M is "elite"? Compared to what?
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slynne
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response 54 of 194:
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Jan 21 18:57 UTC 2001 |
compared to Grand Valley State
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happyboy
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response 55 of 194:
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Jan 21 19:40 UTC 2001 |
and slippery rock
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aaron
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response 56 of 194:
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Jan 21 19:58 UTC 2001 |
And let's not forget the Michael Delizia School of Web Design.
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happyboy
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response 57 of 194:
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Jan 21 22:15 UTC 2001 |
he iz real good..he kin make yore cunpudder
look jes like a studebaker hubcap!
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krj
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response 58 of 194:
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Jan 21 22:29 UTC 2001 |
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.
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krj
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response 59 of 194:
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Jan 21 22:53 UTC 2001 |
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
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krj
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response 60 of 194:
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Jan 21 22:58 UTC 2001 |
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.
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brighn
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response 61 of 194:
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Jan 21 23:12 UTC 2001 |
#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.")
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gull
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response 62 of 194:
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Jan 22 02:11 UTC 2001 |
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.
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brighn
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response 63 of 194:
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Jan 22 03:12 UTC 2001 |
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.
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md
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response 64 of 194:
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Jan 22 04:50 UTC 2001 |
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?
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oddie
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response 65 of 194:
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Jan 22 07:39 UTC 2001 |
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...
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brighn
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response 66 of 194:
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Jan 22 16:45 UTC 2001 |
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.
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tpryan
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response 67 of 194:
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Jan 22 18:11 UTC 2001 |
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.
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remmers
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response 68 of 194:
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Jan 22 23:05 UTC 2001 |
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".
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md
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response 69 of 194:
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Jan 22 23:53 UTC 2001 |
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.
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anderyn
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response 70 of 194:
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Jan 23 01:26 UTC 2001 |
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.
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mcnally
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response 71 of 194:
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Jan 23 02:51 UTC 2001 |
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.
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brighn
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response 72 of 194:
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Jan 23 03:34 UTC 2001 |
"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.
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orinoco
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response 73 of 194:
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Jan 23 15:18 UTC 2001 |
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.
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tpryan
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response 74 of 194:
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Jan 23 17:11 UTC 2001 |
Beethoven is one of those decomposing composers.
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