Is it any wonder why we are seeing less and less records (cd and vinyl etc.) in record stores? It seems to me that these places are littered with Hot Topic kinds of items that let fourteen year old girls be punk rock such as Coheed and Cambria patches and Linkin Park flags, not to mention the musically UNrelated items such as "Zack & Miri Make a Porno".
The reason I am a little agitated is that today I went into a place in the Northgate Mall here in Regina, I won't mention which store but it was not HMV, however it was a corporate record store with yellow and black logo.
I was looking for the Justin Townes Earle record "Midnight at the Movies" but couldn't find it in the country section and thought maybe it would be in the Folk section as the young crooner is actually more traditional than his legendary father, however I had no such luck. Having given up I wandered over the pop/rock section and was just browsing. I got to the the E section and lo and behold the new JTE record was indeed there. "Whatever" I thought to myself. It was a probably just mistake I thought.
So I take it up to the counter and the young gentlemen behind the counter asks me if I found everything alright. I advised the associate that actually this cd should be in the country section or even folk but it was terribly mislabeled. The associate was obviously unfamiliar with the title and showed what appeared to be his working paycheck to paycheck manager. I once again advised him where the title should be as I was trying to offer some advise. The response I got was a mumble under breath was that a lot is mislabeled.
Where the problem lies is that if I come into your store and can't find what I am looking for, how in the blue hell am I supposed to purchase it. Maybe try and run your store properly. Maybe this bothers me because I know how much the artist actually gets for this purchase to start with. If the artist gets two dollars of this nineteen dollar purchase I would be very surprised. I much rather would by a record from the artist at a show however a lot of artists never come near Regina Saskatchewan Canada. You could order from itunes but then you don't get the artwork that is for me half the reason I still enjoy buying records. It's having the ARTWORK in my hands. I am sure fans of vinyl can attest to this. This is why we are still forced to go to the "I don't give a shit about the starving artists" stores. Unless you listen to a lot of top forty radio you are unlikely to find it anyway most of the time.
Record stores are such a love-hate experience for me. I love looking through and can for hours but rarely find what am looking for. Also I often thought it would be a cool part time job to work at Empire Records, however I would end up working for the corporate top forty radio world I described above which I would hate for reasons I have explained.
What a piss off.
Rant over.
Cheers Rockers!
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