Record shops: No dogs, no smoking, no young people?
A fine rant today on the Harry's Place Arts blog, basically saying that the demise of small record shops like Sister Ray is nobody's fault but their own. Here's a taster:
When shops like Sister Ray identify downloading at as the problem ("Young people consider it 'uncool' to pay for music" they’re quoted as saying in Q...) it is obvious who they see their target market as. "Cool young people". Well frankly, fuck the cool young people. If they’re the demographic turning to downloads, then stop catering for them. Cater rather to merely semi-cool people in their late 20s, 30s and - gasp - the over 40s. Why? Well, because we don’t need to wait for our pocket money before we can shell out £2 for a single or £20 for a box set. That’s the great thing about being an adult, actually. If I want that re-issue box set of The Cure b-sides, I have resources at my command to get it. My 18-year old self was rather less capable, though somewhat cooler. So in short: if you think that the "cool" demographic is too cool to pay for music, why the hell continue to cater to them in a retail environment? You’re a shop, not a social movement.
Are independent record shops headed the same way as milk bars as hangouts for the young? Should anyone under 35 be discouraged from working in the ones that are still hanging in there? Should the ads pinned to the wall be advertising World of Warcraft conventions or sciatica cures?
- More from Archie Valparaiso.
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I couldn't agree more...
I can live without the withering disdain of some curiously-coiffured anorak working in a record shop, thank you very much. Yes, I may be desperately uncool (Supertramp, Gilbert etc etc) but I pay your wages, Mr And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead B-Side guy.
Everytime I
go in the record shops there's the smell of death about them(all except the odd purely second hand place that is) their staff have never been that helpful and seem to have got worse. I'm not the most avant garde person but anything outside the scope of this weeks NME seems to bemuse them (particualry anything non US or UK).
I think you're right cater for people with cash who dtill buy cd's. My main desire when I go to shop is to buy stuff there and then not to order stuff or to be told it in tommorrow, the recommendation would be good and possible something other than a scowl once in while.
Excellent piece
and a very amusing set of comments below where it sort of kicks off a little.
Record shops are rarely a hotbed of customer service. I like them despite this not because of it. However, with a proper job and a young family, I don't get time to mooch anymore so online and downloading works best for me.
Strangely, I like bookshops still. Staff are more helpful and the experience is better. Its still quite difficult finding books that aren't simple to classify (Waterstones in Windsor spent 5 minutes checking pretty much every non fiction section looking for The Shock Doctrine (politics, environment, philosophy etc.) telling me they don't have it in stock only for me to notice the 10 copies piled up in the window on the way out. Amazon is easier than that.
Amazon is easier
but you don't get the, I call it "Wosh" of walking into a great bookshop. And that's what I miss about the old record shops.
I actually love it when I see some old guy, (when I say old and I don't mean to sound condescending I mean in their 50's, me being a little sprig at 43) walking up with Lambchop, The Smiths and The Chameleons in his hands to the counter, as I did yesterday. I immediately want to say "can I be your friend" as in "Mate we're in this together", before slithering away in silence.
I have even tried the old game of "I wonder what's he into", rushing over to check what the old buggers are sifting through. Obviously when they were out of eyesight. But that's an issue for Dr Melfi and I to work through.
The staff nowadays usually know very little about their subject but then there are probably 10 times the releases that were around when I were a lad. And you know they only like The Arctic Monkeys or The Last Shadow Puppets and their minds are saying "take that Blue Nile album and get out grandad, you're encroaching on my cred space". Again Dr Melfi and I are working our way through this, thankfully.
I don't have much pity for Sister Ray...
...which I always saw as being the Fawlty Towers of record shops. As the article states, their pervasive inflexibility is the source of their current woes.
Some of the best conversations I've had in a record shop have been with the counter staff in the Oxford Street branch of HMV.
I used to love it
when it was the size of a shoebox. And the staff were OK too. But that was back in the day.
Indie Heaven
During my service in the Indie wars years (1987-1993), Sister Ray was my venue of choice. You just couldn't get Here Today Tomorrow Next Week on silver vinyl in Hounslow, nor the latest Kitchens of Distinction album. Always found Sister Ray helpful and knowing BUT I was between the ages of 17 and 23 at the time; bang in their demographic. Personally thought Selectadisc were grumpy, grisly northern interlopers who sold (urgh!) football shirts in their Berwick St store.