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ivan@stellysee.de
| From | "Gary Littleton" <gary@garylittleton.com> |
| Subject | Re: The loss of music retailing |
| Date | Fri, 16 Dec 2005 11:49:57 -0500 |
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Here in the tampa bay area, we have a couple of excellent records stores
(Vinyl Fever, Sound Exchange), but they barely scrape by. That's why I make
it a point to buy a good percentage of my cds from them, even though they
cost a little more, because those are the kind of places I always want to
have exist in my life. Same with mom and pop restaurants. Online works the
same. Even if I can get a CD for a little bit less at Amazon, I'd rather
order it from Notlame or an independent.
Anyway, thanks for trying to teach cause and effect. It's an important
lesson that you need to put your money, words, and actions toward the kind
of world you want to see. Don't know if you've seen it, but I thought
Jibjab's Big Box Mart perfectly showed the truth of what is happening in our
society now. Call it institutionalized mediocrity.
http://www.jibjab.com/Movies/BoxMart.aspx
Cheers,
Gary
-----Original Message-----
From: audities-owner@smoe.org [mailto:audities-owner@smoe.org] On Behalf Of
Jim Kosmicki
Sent: Friday, December 16, 2005 10:49 AM
To: audities@smoe.org; audities@smoe.org
Subject: The loss of music retailing
The retail world is changing. Just as the local diners are all replaced by
chain restaurants and fast food outlets, the dedicated retailer is being
replaced by the mega-retailer.
For several semesters in my Freshman Comp class, I tried to have my students
read the following Fufkin article
http://www.fufkin.com/columns/bennett/bennett_05_03.htm as an example of
cause-effect writing. It's a nicely written article, and a subject near and
dear to my heart, obviously.
But it never worked. The students had NO concept of a "record store."
A place that only sells music? Huh? My older students could still remember
record/CD stores and would wax nostalgic, but the 17-22 year olds had no
concept. When those of us who remembered would talk about selection and
clerks who knew the music they sold, they honestly didn't understand. They
only know "clerks who might as well be selling shoes."
They have been trained to want only one thing -- "low" price.
Here in Central Nebraska, in a city of about 50,000, we haven't had a music
only store for 4 years now. And we haven't had a good one in over
15 years. It's no wonder that my students only think of downloading the
music (whether for free or through itunes); it's the only way they can get
anything beyond whatever Hastings or Wal-mart decides to sell.
With a few exceptions, music is not integrated into these kids' souls the
way it was for my generation. Personal music players makes music an
individual pursuit. We had to vote and decide what got listened to in the
student lounge in high school, because everyone was listening to the same
boombox. Today everyone listens to their own music player. And ironically
enough, they are probably listening to a more uniform playlist -- in the
student lounge in any given week, you'd hear Top 40, but you'd also hear
country, some jazz from the band kids, some punk, some new-wave, etc. I
still have a pretty eclectic set of listening preferences because I was
exposed to so many different styles. Kids today, even though they have the
potential to hear so much more, actually hear much less.
I occasionally play some music as background in my classroom, and I take it
upon myself to choose different materials to broaden their listening
experience. To date, the band that has gotten the most positive response is
Architecture in Helsinki. They aren't going to hear that on today's
corporate radio -- but they liked it. A good record store playing that CD
in the background would have a solid seller on their hands. How is that
"word-of-ear" going to happen today?
Anyway, end of rambling -- back to grading final papers.
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