Still shopping for music at physical record stores? Tell us why.

In honor of Saturday April 18th, 2009 being National Record Store Day here in the U.S., please discuss your reasons for continuing to shop for music at physical record stores.

To kick off the discussion, here is a set of mini-interviews of physical record store employees in an article from the current issue of LA Weekly (Los Angeles Weekly). Luckily, the article also appears on their website, so here is that link:

www.laweekly.com...

And here are some related articles from the website of Rolling Stone magazine:

www.rollingstone.com...


My own reasons for for shopping at brick-and-mortar music stores include:

1. The ability to browse for what's new across every imaginable genre.

2. The ability to ask a knowledgeable store employee questions about music.

3. Being able to discover emerging music genres.


So, what are your opinions? In addition, please tell us what level of experience with music you have. For example, I am a nonmusician but I love listening to all types of music.

In addition, here are some websites of physical music stores. Please suggest more links like these if you know of others:

www.amoeba.com...

poobah.com...

www.fatbeats.com...

www.last.fm...

[edit on 4/17/2009 by Uphill]

I still shop at record stores.

Mostly because I like owning the physical copy of something not just having it be a file on my computer.

I know most people just like to go and download it. But I like going to record stores and seeing there record selection, then deciding which one I want.

Physical copies.

And the fact that MP3 compression still ruins audio.

I still head out to the record shop every now and then, more so for the ritual of it than the actual product. Walking up and down the aisles, flipping through the new and used albums...reminds me of my college days.

I listen to all my music via MP3 nowadays, but there are still some artists whose album I will buy regardless.

If you're in the Bay Area, check out Amoeba, Rasputin and Streetlight Records!

Yes !
Always enjoyed spending time in physical record stores. Just to look around. Checking new releases. Enjoy the silence, as people do not speak that much (you know why :-)

Do not buy music so often any more, but its kind of a highlight to bring home a physical CD. The cover itself is something. All the info. Musicians, production, lyrics ect. Of course a CD cost money. After all, its the work an artist has desided to share and make people happy about.

In the 80's and 90's as a fan of Eric Clapton, it was always so great to drop in the rock/blues shop to be the proud owner of a "new" bootleg, vinyl of course, or other speciel import records. Box sets ect.
At that time, this was THE SHOP. Now its closed.
Lots of it is on the internet. Still its not the same...

So whats the difference of downloading from the internet and buying a CD ? Sure its the music that counts. For me its more tastefull to get handed over chocolate in a beautiful box, wrapped in beautilful giftpaper, than "just" in a plastic bag. It "taste" better.

For the sake of compromise : This is a link for a online shop, where its possible to buy physical CD's, DVD's and so on.
But for nordic custumers only

cdon.dk/musik/


[edit on 18-4-2009 by flymetothemoon]

Ok, I'm a 30 something (ex musician), that works in a record store. We used to be an independant, but are now owned by a large corporate chain, which in some ways is better and other not so good. I don't download, occasionally I'll check something out on spotify to see how I feel about it, but to be honest, I've got stuff in shrinkwrap from last year still.

Now, I'm biased, this is my living and these are very strange times for the music industry, but I'm totally in love with "physical product", the whole thing, the packaging, the audio quality, sitting on the bus with my bag of new stuff checking it out, ahh, vinyl makes me all warm inside, saying that I got Stevie Wonders' "Music of my mind" on vinyl that came with a free download of the album and I did download that, but never bothered to listen to it.

I'm gonna "big-up" my store a little... we're in a large(ish) city and have a great and loyal customer base (got a nice bottle of red of a punter yesterday) and weirdly our customers do talk to each other, there's a great vibe, people are really into what they're getting, we've got a 15 year old kid that buys Stooges albums and he asked me what Sonic Youth records he should buy - there's old black guys that are giving me pointers on my jazz-listening (I've a lot to learn), but one guy told me to get Ascension by Coltrane and it's a damn fine record... maybe that would've come up on my Amazon recommends, but I'd probably have ignored it, but then Barry, telling me in his West Indian drawl, that I'll fall in love with dis record made me buy it. We're not particularly specialist, we cater mostly to the alternative market, but it's so good to be able to trawl through stuff, hold it in your hands and feel that little tingle.

I remember being 14 or so and reading through the thanks-lists on records, noting all the bands that were mentioned and checking them out, that really broadened my horizons.

Contractually, I can't say too much, but there is a perceived future for "physical-product" and it's kinda rosy.

reply to post by Uphill
Hi there uphill
I'm afraid I only download nowadays cos it's so much cheaper and for me far less hassle than wading through shelves in a store.
MP3 million is like one giant candy store ---I just love it.

Because I support indie record shops and i still buy vinyl, plus browsing is still fun.

Buying mp3s is great because you can pick and choose the best bits of an otherwise mixed bag of an album.

I still prefer CDs and Vinyl though, and find that having a solid, physical medium for recorded music, with a sleeve or case, and artwork, and sleeve notes, to be much better than a bunch of 1's and 0's on a hard drive. Also, as the poster above says, browsing record shops - and record fairs - is fun!

I don't normally shop in stores, I order most of my CD's online. I prefer the actual physical copy rather than an mp3 because of the better sound quality.

Stores around here don't carry the stuff I want, and don't stock any of the stuff that they do have.

Online now because it's easier and saves a hell of alot of actual space than having racks of vinyl filling up the house.

I do however miss the touch, smell and sound of vinyl especially the beautiful crisp crackling sound when you put a record on. Although digital audio files don't skip and don't warp if you accidentally leave them out in the sun.

So they've both pro's and cons.

As for MP3 compression, all it does is filter out the frequencies which are audible to the human ear. There is no difference in actual sound quality between a .flac/.wav file vs a 320k mp3 on average home sound system, you need specialised audio producing gear to actually hear the difference and the only difference is that high frequencies sound more crisp and defined due to their being more of them

Not sure about the audio quality/physical vs mp3 thing...

Maybe it's just me but I don't think mp3s sound as good, just because we can't hear frequencies, doesn't mean we can't feel them.

I just love mooching through 2nd hand shops - I work in a music retail environment, so can get my hands on anything I like, but it's the 2nd hand shops that pop up "treasure"!

Folks, here is a book that you may not have heard about ... it goes right to the heart of this thread:

The Vinyl Countdown: The Album from LP to iPod and Back Again by Travis Elborough. Published May 2009.

Here is the link on Amazon for further info:

www.amazon.com...=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1249699198&sr=1-1

Check it out.

I have to shop at a physical store as the music I like is not available very well over the internet.

Uriah Heep, Sweet, Cream, Jethro Tull, Steely Dan, etc, all sound better on vinyl. To me anyways.

Hard to explain but it sounds more mellow. Or maybe it's just that's just because I first heard them all on vinyl.

Guess I'm a dinosaur...