In less than 6 months, we've witnessed the closure of at least two major record stores, the Tower Records chain in the US, and Sam the Record Man in Canada, and countless independent local and regional record or CD stores.

Despite the celebrations of the 40th anniversary of the release of the greatest "record" album of all time, this year 2007 is already shaping up to be a dismal one for music lovers. Fortunately, being close to Manhattan, I am still able to go to brick  & mortar record shops like I did last night and buy real compact discs from real people with real cash money, as opposed to doing all my purchasing in cyberspace.

Even, Internet sales of the compact disc have fallen off markedly, as the main delivery device (sounds like cigarettes and nicotine doesn't it?) for music consumption is the iPod, and downloading digital tunes song by song. More on this trend later, but my initial reaction is that it is sad and we are really witnessing the end of an era. Any thoughts on this or is this just business and free market capitalism at its' best?

 

 

I was really sad to hear Sam The Record Man was going out of business.  Even though I have never lived in Toronto I visited that store several times.  It was a real institution & a place one could spend hours looking about.   In the west we have a chain called A&B Sound which I have shopped at for 25 years.  They were always a great source of music but over the years they got bought out and slowly they have gone down hill.  I still love buying cds.  I was in HMV on Tuesday to pick up Kevin Parent's new cd and was astonished by how few people weere in this enormous store.  I would hate to see record stores a thing of the past.

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Greg Keelor met Jim Cuddy and then I met you people. Serendipity is a marvellous thing.


"I guess I don't know if I believe in God but
I know a song can make you feel good once
in a while." ~Greg Keelor~

A bit of clarification for those readers who do not live in the metro Toronto area. Sam the Record Man actually did go bankrupt and closed over 100 of its' stores in 2002, but then business picked up a little and the flagship store, that being the one on Yonge Street with the two huge neon records on the front outside stayed open...that is until May 30, 2007 when the owner announced that that store would close too as of June 30, 2007. This is rather sad because this place is, where among other fun things, I and many of the Blue Rodeo fans saw Greg Keelor perform live just last November.

Technically, this thread should probably be in the General Music forum, but I consciously chose to place it here in album and song reviews because the album as we know it is gone and the song as we consume it or them, has changed so radically that a true 20th century cultural icon, that being the "Record Store", kind of like the Drive-In Movie is rapidly becoming extinct. And if you don't think that this entity of the record store is not important, consider that it was at a record shop in a department store in Liverpool, England that a young clerk named Brian Epstein was asked by customers for records by a then (1962) virually unknown skiffle group called The Beatles. Epstein sought out the records for his customers, then he saw for himself The Beatles at the Cavern Club and the rest is rock and roll history...a cultural icon indeed!

Granted hundreds of millions of compact discs are still floating around out there and they will still be made and sold mostly on the Internet, and at a few used record shops who will boutique the demand much like the dwindling demand for LP records and the even more dwindling collector's demand for original vinyl 45 rpm records. But, the times they are a-changin'.

So, just to conform this thread with the forum of "album and song reviews", I'll give you a review of a song instead of an album because people are now creating and accessing music song by song in June 2007. It's not a really new song, but it did appear on a cd entitled "True Companion" released in 2003 by Joe Grushecky & the Houserockers...Pittsburgh bar band extraordinaire. Joe also collaborated with Bruce Springsteen on more than a couple of songs, but the one I like is the record's opener, "A Long Way to Go" penned entirely by Joe Grushecky. It's a story song, quite autobiographical about Joe and his love for rock and roll and how that love for the music influenced how he was told to watch his brother by his parents while the boys went to Pittsburgh to see the Stones, later making career decisions, and then later where he traveled to, and what he did with his life decade by decade. Each chorus ends with the simple but ebullient assertion, "I got a long way to go." Yes, he married, had kids, teaches as a day job, taught his kids his love for music, moved to the suburbs and he's moving a bit slower these days but, oh I'll let Joe tell you his story...

"I got to get up for work this morning

I still wanna rock and roll.

Hell, I'm only in my fifties,

And I got a long way to go!"

A Long Way to Go by Joe Grushecky, c. 2005.

When one door closes, another one opens.

This indeed may be sad (and not in a "whatever happened to the 8-track" kinda way) or it may turn out to be just what the music industry needs. I can't help but hope that as these Wal-Martesque record stores close, that other purchasing venues will give greater exposure to artists who are not carried by these stores due to "commercial viability."

I do not see a complete end to record stores....nor do I ever see the end of stores that specialize in used CDs. Music lovers will continue to seek out what they want. More CDs will be purchased at shows (I predict) to the better$$$ment of the artists themselves.

Just a few scattered thoughts....not sure where to go with the rest of it.....

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The great thing about Sam The Record Man was that he sold every genre of music, from classical to jazz, folk to rock'n'roll.  If he didn't have a record in stock, you would be sure to find it in his huge catalog listings, and could order it in.  I feel very sad about the closing of this great institution. 

Being a dinosaur myself, I am a bit confused with all this downloading from the internet.  I don't own an ipod, because I can't afford one right now.  I do worry that by downloading online you could have a technical problem, and end up losing the music you just paid for.

I'v heard that there are still specialty stores out there, selling the good old vinyl records, so I am hoping that the same will happen with cds.

 

What goes around, stays around!

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I carry with me the memory of a field I once knew, of a night so full of stars that I was left humbled by it's endless beauty. I know that whatever the cost, life is worth living. So bring it on...I can take it.