Record Store Day – An Ambivalent Ramble Pt.1
With the amount of vinyl I buy you’d think I’d be an evangelical supporter of record shops, wouldn’t you, and heartily looking forward to Record Store Day 2011. But I’m kind of swithering for some reason, and I think it’s one of these things which merits a bit more discussion than just Awesome! Record shops! Vinyl! Special editions! Yay!
Firstly some caveats, because I might come across as being against both record shops and Record Store Day for the next little while, and I guarantee you I am not. I love record shops and I think that a day reminding us all that yet another crucial part of the independent music infrastructure is under threat and needs our support is a very good thing. Not least because we human beings have a rather irritating habit of only realising that we miss something once it’s gone.
Part 1: Record Shops – The Bad News
Part 2: Record Shops – The Good News
Part 3: Record Store Day
My first thought, however, is that for all record shops are generally a good thing, like labels and venues, they are not deserving of support or protection just because of what they are – they have to actually be good at it. It is easier than it ever was for bands to sell direct to their fans now, which is hugely more profitable for them, and if you genuinely support the making of music then you simply cannot say that this is a bad thing. But that means that as a label, a shop, or any other part of the infrastructure which feeds off that band-to-fan transaction the onus is very much on you to justify your entire existence these days.
Like labels, the internet has completely changed the game for record shops. Competition is generally regarded as a good thing, but mature industries (where the music industry was, and where much of it still is, in its head) provide relatively narrow forms of competition. A record shop just had to have an advantage over the other more or less identical record shops in its immediate catchment area. If they did that well, then shazam, they were more or less set.
This was more or less the same with record labels: they were all used to competing with one another on pretty narrowly defined terms, and that has all gone now. Now they are competing with all sorts of ill-defined things. Now, just as we need a compelling reason to buy a physical product rather than a download, we need a compelling reason to traipse off to a shop, when we can almost certainly find what we want on the internet faster, more conveniently, and often cheaper as well.
So a record shop needs to become a compelling destination in its own right, because it is unlikely to measure up as well against the traditional retail yardsticks of choice or price. You need a reason to go in, a reason to dedicate whatever part of your day you spend wandering around to poking around a shop full of stuff you can get cheaper on the internet, without the worries which clothes shoppers face, of misjudging fit or shape.
Furthermore, just as musicians are facing the squeeze from people spending their entertainment budgets on a massively increased array of competing products, like gaming for example, so too record shops are having to shift the emphasis of the terms on which they compete. It’s not about ‘retail’ competition as much as it used to be, because they will almost always lose that battle to the internet, it’s now about the competition for leisure time – as it seems to be across much of the physical retail sector.
And let’s be honest, a lot of record shops simply aren’t, or weren’t, very nice places to visit. The staff can be snotty, the decor ropey, and the respect for the actual product pretty minimal. Some places manage to make that charming, but many more simply make it look like they don’t really give a fuck. And if they don’t why should we.
The music industry may still be squealing like stuck pig, but the success stories of recent years, such as the excellent Beggars Group, have found salvation in the specialists. Instead of courting the mass market, they realised that the more dedicated fans were the ones who spent the money, and they have addressed those fans well by emphasising the kind of band and the kind of business model which suits that market.
For shops this is a problem though, because the more hardcore the fan, the more they are suited to the Long Tail model – they’re passionate and willing to spend, but it is on a more obscure range of products. Again, shops simply can’t stock every last little stupid release from a tape club label in Basingstoke, however much I might personally want to buy their stuff. So the more passionate music fans – the ones who spend the most time and money on music – will end up buying a lot on the internet anyway, and while they are there, shops’ potential custom will be cannibalised and there’s just no way of avoiding that.
A lot of shops have utterly failed to acknowledge these things beyond moaning about them, and they will go out of business and, frankly, tough shit. This is the equivalent of a record label complaining that people don’t buy CDs anymore and trying to get the government to shut the internet down – it just isn’t good enough. Why are Beggars Group successful? Because instead of moaning, they addressed the problem in front of them: okay, people aren’t buying as many CDs anymore, but who is buying stuff and what do they buy?
Of course, to suggest that I myself have any of the answers to these challenges is laughable. If I did I would be selling records and making a fortune doing so. But from the perspective of someone who loves records, there are definitely some things I think do make me want to spend time and money in shops, even if it’s always highly doubtful whether or not one person’s personal preferences have any real broader relevance. In Part 2, tomorrow, I will discuss the things I like about my favourite shops, and you can make of them what you will.
I’d support my local record store if I could. My local record store however stocks nothing |I want to buy. left with the choice between buying online or getting a bus/train into Glasgow to visit a better shop it is almost always cheaper, and certainly easier, for me to make a couple of clicks on Bandcamp, BigCartel or whatever and get a CD in the post a few days later. I’m sympathetic to small record shops, but I’m a man of limited money, I’ll do what makes most economic sense for me, even if it shafts them. This is all fairly irrelevant to the post, sorry.
It isn’t, it’s a legitimate reason people don’t visit record shops as much anymore.
For my part, the music I buy often comes from tiny labels in Manchester, Montreal, Middle America… all over the place. No local record shop ever could, nor should stock this stuff, because otherwise their shelves would be overwhelmed with obscure guff.
So while I’m buying vinyl by Manners and The Sunsets from the States, and from The Louche FC and Brown Brogues from tiny labels in Manchester, I am probably going to get the one album I might get locally – Timber Timbre, for example – while I’m on the internet anyway.
This might be frustrating for shop owners but it is just as much a fact of life as rain being wet. So if this is an unavoidable reality, then what advantages can they offer? I have no idea but, a bit like labels, if you aim for hard work, personal likability and customer loyalty then you probably have the best chance.
Complaining about it or pretending it isn’t happening is just ostrich behaviour.
“The staff can be snotty, the decor ropey, and the respect for the actual product pretty minimal”
That’s why I don’t shop at a certain store in Edinburgh.
I think Mono in Glasgow is the perfect record shop, friendly, knowledgeable staff, great stock, nicely laid out. Why cant Edinburgh have a shop like that. Sorry to pick bones and be specific but it just annoys me that I want to spend my well earned cash in a record store and I have to wait till I am in Glasgow to do so.
Record shopping is about escapism, excitement, the buzz of the hunt and the satisfaction of the find (and the slight feeling of guilt when you spend more than you should have!).
Not being hassled, distracted, feeling uncomfortable and disappointed.
Also I will always buy direct from the band at gigs as its nice to meet the bands and support them directly.
Well buying direct from bands is generally the best thing you can do.
What labels and shops are struggling with, I think, is that given how easy this direct transaction is, they no longer have that cast-iron grip on the route to the fan.
So labels, shops, distributors and to an extent venues, although less so, need to figure out what it is that can’t be replaced, despite the disintermediation caused the internet.
It’s not an easy thing. There are several record shops I love, but it’s a very intangible thing that I love about them, and not at all easy to pin down. It’s like a good pub, I suppose, if you just feel at home there then you’ll go back again and again.
In case you’re referring to Avalanche can I say they have improved dramatically over the last year. The staff seems more than up for a chat about random music or what’s happening to record shops.
I remember always getting curt answers to even asking who was playing at that moment but I’ve been much happier giving some chat the last few times I’ve been in.
RE: Greg BTW.
I was going to say, I don’t think was referring to anyone in particular. But the new Avalanche is a nice big space, and it would be great if it were really taken advantage of.
Agree with MURTUP that there’s a degree of friendliness at the new Avalanche that was less forthcoming on Cockburn Street. It still feels like they’re trying to find their place, but they do seem to be much more engaged with local music and local punters.
My biggest problem with Avalanche stems from my own preference for vinyl, and I just see no attraction in browsing their CD racks – the CD is just a conduit to an MP3 these days. Shopping for records, much like playing vinyl, seems to be as much about the ritual as the music itself. That’s why your shop has to be about more than just selling the music you can get on the internet. Vinyl racks, fanzines, Iocal music promotions, in-stores, t-shirts, art exhibitions, gig tickets, even coffees are all a step in the right direction.
I have a friend who says: “I can remember where I was when I bought almost every record I own, but I can hardly remember what I downloaded from eMusic this month.” Sums it up for me.
Gary, Kev has just announced that he is doubling the size of the vinyl section, and you can see from his blog that he is starting to book all sorts of events in the shop itself. Both of these are, I think, really good developments.
This: Shopping for records, much like playing vinyl, seems to be as much about the ritual as the music itself. I think absolutely nails it. I talk about this a bit in Part 3, but yeah, there’s no need to shop for vinyl these days, but then there’s no real need to even own it in the first place.
Funny how CDs have just become mp3s in a box though. I didn’t really see that coming until I spent hours listening to my CDs on the computer at work and finally realised I should just rip them rather than cart them back and forth all the time.
I think I’m the only person left on the planet that loves CDs, I always had a liking for the runt of the litter though. Even when I download I burn to CD and make a cover………..this is going to seem eccentric in a few years.
Although I have lots of vinyl I can’t get the idea out of my head that i’m spoiling it just a little each time I play it.
Saying that if i’m pished and find 70 vinyl singles all over the floor the next morning I have no guilt…..that’s just a good night
oh yeah CD’s – love them
this is going to seem eccentric in a few years”
In a few years??? Even a weirdo like me stopped doing that in about 2002!
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