Next Stop? Not the Record Store

Recently my band did one of the weirdest and lamest gigs I have ever done. We attempted to play a ‘stripped down’ type set at an art show. Seemed like a cool idea until we found out it was at the City Hall. During a city council meeting.

Why this all happened at the same time I’ll never understand.

Needless to say, ‘The Man’ (complete with suit and tie, thinning hair, and governmental I’m-totally-more-important-than-you attitude) came and pulled the whole, “Turn it down guys” dance in the first 30 seconds of the first song.

Whatever. We played four songs –very quietly –and then packed up. The Artist girl was a friend and we did it as a favor and she was happy. The seven people who were there were happy. We weren’t happy. But what musician is ever happy? It’s all part of the angst-art thing I guess…

So a week later our guitarist gives us envelopes from our artist friend. So I open up my envelope and see a gift certificate of some type. A nice thank you gesture indeed.  It’s a 20.00 gift certificate from a local record store. And you know what my very first thought was?

‘Dude, I totally would have preferred a gift card from Starbucks”

Wow. I mean wow. I never thought that would have been my reaction to a record store gift certificate.

Now everybody knows record sales are down (CD sales to be exact), and record stores are closing, and Napster put Lars Ulrich two weeks behind getting his Tiger Shark tank, but when I actually got a 20.00 gift cert that would allow me to buy a CD it really hit me – this is a completely worthless piece of paper.  There was a very nice thought behind it, but the reality is, if I want to hear any music on the planet I don’t have to go anywhere to get it –it’s all right here, on my laptop, on my lap, sitting on my couch. To give me something that makes me get in my car, drive to the record store, talk to the record dude/dudette with way too many piercings, look through the bins, buy it, and ad to the clutter in my house I am already trying to minimize, is way more of a chore than a gift.

Now please understand, this is coming from a guy who used to love to go out to breakfast on Saturday mornings with his buddies and then cruise down to the record store and peruse the bins for hours. I once spent five hours picking out three records from a certificate I got when I was twelve. (I’m proud to say one was Aerosmith’s first record (a great record) and ashamed to admit one was a Go Go’s record –I can’t remember the third…)

I used to save my lunch money to buy records.

I used to love it when I would get CD’s and gift certificates for Christmas.

I used to be terribly jealous of people that had more CD’s than me.

And my earliest memories of actually getting records as a kid are some of the fondest in my inner hard drive. I still salivate with the lust for Rock Power when I see the cover for Kiss Alive II.

But something has drastically changed in the zeitgeist of music consumption. I want the music to come to me now –I don’t want to be bothered with going to it. And I don’t think I’m alone in the sentiment as evidenced by closing record stores on every corner. It just doesn’t make sense anymore.

It doesn’t mean I don’t want to own the new Zero 7 record, it’s just that I don’t want to deal with the hassle of going to the store to get it. Especially if I haven’t even had the chance to listen to it first. That’s the one place where the internet has changed everything –if you can’t find it and listen to it, you’re not looking in the right place.

Now as I’ve previously written, the public’s desire for the ‘object’ of the art (in this case the record or CD) has not necessarily decreased –in fact it is on the increase as vinyl sales are on the rise, it’s just now the object (CD, tape, etc.) and the journey is no longer a necessity, it’s now a choice, a commitment on the part of the consumer. A decisive act on the part of a fan. A real fan.

Now, when somebody wants an artist’s CD or record, chances are they are not a peripheral fan –they are a dedicated listener. And those are the fans that actually will sustain a person’s career. Not the 13 year-olds who beg their Moms for the record only to despise it by their 14^th birthday. And the record store is no longer a necessary part of the equation. It’s just a pain.

The battle now for the consumer is not for their fifteen bucks –it’s for their attention. And the way to win that battle is with good music. Really good music. You can’t get by on kinda good with a lot of hype anymore. Now the journey for the consumer/fan is not from the house to the car to the store, it’s in their attention span. The have to be hooked in with the music and the purchase may come much further down the road, but if they are hooked they will eventually buy. It might take awhile but they will buy.

Like with my relationship with Zero 7 for instance. I love much of their music and have most of it. But I admit, I never bought it – somebody *cough* gave it to me. But I am a dedicated fan. I enthusiastically tell people about them. When they come to town, I want to see them. If they have a really cool shirt, I will buy it. It happened with Gomez –I heard, I possessed, I went to the show, then I bought.

And when I finally get around to setting up my vinyl playing sound system, you better believe, Zero 7’s ‘Home’ is one song that I will pay to listen to on vinyl.  I want to hear every nuance of that song. On analog.

So do I think record stores are going to go away completely? Probably not. There will always be somebody who wants to ‘go’. It just won’t be me. I’ll have my ultra limited edition Tom Waits record delivered to my door, thank you. And for the rest – it’s stream, click, and download. And when I’m really excited -it’ll be an impulse buy at the show.