A Life Reset

Sometimes I wonder if technology moves too fast. Getting music as digital downloads these days is something akin to a minor miracle. If there is a song you like, just go onto iTunes, search for it, pay your 99 cents and within moments, you are listening to it. Take that same track and download it to your iPod and you have music on the go. Burn it onto a CD if you do not a CD player or if you want to listen to it in your car. if you want the whole album, it will cost a bit more in money and time but that is all there is to it. So very easy.

Because I can get music I want when I want it, I really have no need to go to a record store or even the music section of Best Buy or Target. I can not really remember when I actually bought a physical CD for myself.

It is because iTunes and other music download/sharing services have made it so easy to get music now that the local independent record store is becoming a rare site along with the national chains.

We will be much poorer culturally when these store become a memory.

I say this not as one of those record store geeks who through hanging out at the store was able to absorb plenty of music knowledge of the popular and the arcane. Growing up in the small outports of Newfoundland, there were not any record stores to pick up the latest hits. Indeed, much of what was my music collection was provided by enrolling in the Columbia Records Music ordering system, the one where for a penny you get 10 albums provided you order another 8 more at substantially inflated prices. Even going into town did not provide much more availability. I think there were albums available at the Kmart in the mall there.

Indeed, it was not until I moved to Toronto that I fully realised what I was missing out on when it came to music. Sam the Record Man, HMV, Tower Records along with the second-hand music shops along Queen Street all provided excellent sources of experiencing and purchasing music of all kinds. I particularly liked HMV on Yonge St with its extension collection of imports from Europe for dance music as well as its classical music collections. Very soon, I had a nice collection of music to play on my walkman as I strolled the streets of Toronto.

What I like about those stores was being able to converse with the people behind the counter and get some information about an artist and perhaps some guidance on what to buy. This is of course predates the Internet era when such information became widely available. These people acquired this knowledge simply by listening to plenty of music, talking to people in the business, hanging out at clubs checking out the local scene as well as sharing information among themselves. It is doubtful that the sales associate at Best Buy will ever hope to gain such knowledge in his lifetime by simply minding the shelves.

Another thing about these stores, is that on occasion, they will have special events like autograph sessions or even in store concerts. All part of the process for musicians to get to know their fans and the fans to get a better appreciation of whose music they were buying. I do not think Wal-mart allows for music acts to have meet and greets at its local stores.

There are other aspects of records stores that are appealing or rather once were appealing. For one, having a record store in a commercial area always brought in a certain type of customer who may be interested in other businesses like a tavern featuring live acts or clothing stores that featured vintage or cutting edge fashion. A typical record store customer is a younger customer with plenty of disposable income to spend on entertainment but do not forget the older adult customer who seeks to reconnect with the music of his past or try to fill in a hole in his collection that he slowly has built over the years. iTunes is quite good with its back catalog but it does not have everything especially a lot of music predating even the CD era. There are some glaring holes in the catalog, most famously being the entire Beatles catalog.

There is the physical aspect to a record store that an on-line music store just can not replicate. iTunes is pretty good in matching up suggestions based on your choices you have before but that tends to narrow cast suggestions into the same genre which may be fine for many people. For me though, I like to be more adventurous and discover new artists that I would never come across before unless, I was walking by a table fill with CDs for me to flip through. The thrill of discovering something different and appealing makes it all worthwhile. To find an undiscovered treasure is the dream of all audiophiles. An attractive cover on the album may get me interested in seeing what sort of tracks there are. Sometimes, the record store will be playing an album over the speakers that would get my attention enough for me to inquire about it and even purchase the CD. Sometimes you need more than a 30 second sample clip to fully appreciate a song or an album. Even feeling the plastic case with your fingers makes the music feel a bit more real than digital bits on the computer screen.

Then there is the ambiance of the record store, particularly of the independent stores. Posters from tours from long ago, walls of gold records, racks of faded black t-shirts, even the smell of the place with cigarettes, and the outgassing of the vinyl records.

I think my lament is more of a nostalgic thing as it I was never that hard core of a music store fan. I guess the idea of the record store as a touchstone of my youth rather than personal experiences mean more to me but then again maybe a male growing up in the 80’s, perhaps we wanted to be more like John Cusask and run our own record store:

Of course, if we had employees like Jack Black around, you probably will not need any live entertainment. Not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing.

April 18th ,2009 is Record Store Day where true music fans are asked to head out to their local independent record store and support them by buying a CD, a record or something to allow them to continue to operate and become the alternative source to big box stores because these stores are become a dying institution and when they go, where else will we find our music treasures? Much like the used book store and the local bakery, we always wish we had one in our neighbourhood yet when we do have one, we never go inside and check it out for ourselves. Time for mere talk has passed and action is required so let us all do our part and drop into our local record store. (See this list for your local participating record store)