This represents the beginning of the end for retail music. Between the pressures of shopping convenience, downloadable music, and the death of the CD, eventually all music not sold by a band at a venue will only be available online.
Tower Records is closing, and as the signs say, everything must go. The whole chain is shutting, not just this thoroughly ravaged store off the Pike in Rockville. A liquidator is peddling the stock left in Tower’s 85 or so remaining stores (five locally), and by Christmas, even Tower’s desiccated carcass will be dust.
All of it is going, of course — not just Tower, but the record store culture that Tower embodied. Anything that can be squeezed down to ones and zeros and moved around at the speed of electrons doesn’t have to be stacked in plastic cases, shoved into bins and splayed over aisles under fluorescent lights anymore. All of it’s going online.
The article does have a point. Just as many lamented the loss of the LP canvas for album art (sure it’s still there, but who really looks at it now?) some will lament the loss of the opportunity of discovery inherent in leafing through a pile of albums looking for the one you wanted and finding something new and unexpected.
I don’t think this “discovery” has been lost. Every music download site from napster to itunes has suggestions of other artists you might like when you browse albums.
In fact, the new on-line “pile of albums” is probably more useful and would lead to the discovery of more bands that the searcher would like in less time than digging through a pile of music would take.
Plus you can listen to samples of the tracks in order to find out if you like them or not without having to buy them.
technology FTW
I stopped by the Torrance CA store over the weekend. Thoroughly depressing. All that’s left is one of Cheap Trick’s more recent CDs, marked down to 2 bucks. Ugh.
1,
I think there is a difference between seeing a list of choices presented to you by the vendor based on what they think you’d like and just pawing through a pile of albums, but that’s just my opinion.
Try and buy a ‘tuner’ with a phono input! For that matter try and buy anything with a tuner input! Has anyone seen anything that will convert my ‘records’ to my iPod? (I have a bunch of them that were found in a pyramid or something…)
Well, I’m glad. I hated how Tower Records sorted all of its music by specific genre. I tried finding a Blue Cheer CD in a Tower Records store and was utterly lost. Were they under Hard Rock? Nope. Metal? Nope. Rock? Nope. Did Tower have any Blue Cheer?! I have no idea and I wasted about a half hour looking.
I think there is a difference between seeing a list of choices presented to you by the vendor based on what they think you’d like and just pawing through a pile of albums, but that’s just my opinion.
That’s my opinion too. Of course it goes along with the completely different way people listen to music now. I don’t remember who said it, but basically “music is entertainment now. it’s no longer food for the soul”. If anybody doesn’t understand what that means, I feel sorry for them.
Back in the old days, we just sat around AND LISTENED TO MUSIC. We didn’t talk, we didn’t watch TV, we didn’t do anything else but sit and listen. (Ok, well sometimes we had to load another bowl. But we listened while we did that.)
Something is lost and I am afraid we will not be able to get it back.
You’re right, Alix. I remember shuffling through LP’s at Korvette’s All Label Sale ($2.67 ea. – mono) and walking away with much more than I intended just because I was captured by the cover art.
Has anyone seen anything that will convert my ‘records’ to my iPod? (I have a bunch of them that were found in a pyramid or something…)
There are a lot of solutions out there for that, although most of them are way way overpriced.
You CAN still buy a turntable, and the entry level models aren’t too expensive, and most of them now have RIAA equilization built in so you can just plug it into the CD or AUX input of your amplifier or computer. It’s more work to rip vinyl, but it’s perfectly doable.
Not much choice if I want to hear the GTO’s or Jaimie Brockett in my car.
I was in the SF store recently and they said they’d be closed by Dec 15. The Classical Annex is already gone and it will be greatly missed. I don’t know of another source of a WIDE variety of classical music with a staff that actually knows their stuff.
The other thing that is missing when the retailers go away is stumbling across something totally unexpected because a cover caught your eye in a section you usually don’t bother with. I picked up a great CD on my last trip that was a Betty Page Exotica album. Great lounge music that I never would have sought out or even come close to finding online. It’s far different than “discovering” something that is similar to something you already have. Stumbling is happening upon something completely new and online algorithms don’t do that.
While the demise of the CD format has been predicted for a while, I personally have hard time finding a reason to switch from it to something new. While the file format has its advantages (instant availability, for example), it has drawbacks as well (the sound quality, the technical component of it, etc.) I am pretty happy with the CDs and even when I have a choice, I’d make a copy of an audio CD to listed on a computer instead of using an iPod.
There’s nothing like a go at the bins. Sometimes you found nothing, sometimes you found treasure.
I don’t think music stores are dead, but hopefully this means that OVERPRICED music stores will soon be dead. Until DRM goes away I’m sticking with CDs so I can play my music wherever I want, but I would never pay $16 to $18 for one, which is what stores such as Tower charges. I say good riddance.
eventually all music not sold by a band at a venue will only be available online
And if the RIAA has its way it will pay to play everytime. No one will ever own a copy of any piece of music. Nothing to pass on to future generations, unless you want to pass along your perpetual payment music store to them.
Yeah, what #12 said.
Yeah, what #13 said.
I have a lot of fond memories of tower records, a good 10-15 years ago going through the store about once or twice a month.
The closest one was about 45 minutes away, as all the local music stores simply sucked.
Yes, some was more expensive than can be found elsewhere, but getting the best price isn’t always the best deal. The atmosphere of a good music store is tough to beat, something you surely aren’t going to find at either best buy or online.
Tower, you will be missed. By real music fans, at least.
8,
On that topic, I have the hardware, but want an easy software package to convert my LPs to my iPod.
@ #17:
You could always install Audacity ( http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ ) to your PC, run your phonograph’s tuner output or cassette player’s headphone jack into the MIC jack of your PC’s sound card, and “Let ‘Er RIP!” the tunes to .mp3…then put the digital files on your iPod.
It’s YOUR music. Fair Use 4EVAH.
I’m in the age group that grew up with cd’s and record stores. I know about the experience of buying music in a store but I really like to listen to music before buying it. As far as exploring music, anyone here use live365.com? I have discovered tons of music listening to that service (now on tivo) I also like pandora.com for finding things similar to other songs. I don’t think we should get too focused on the format.
What #12 said, plus,
despite having a large selection, Tower often didn’t have anything I wanted to buy.
It was much better in the vinyl days on both cost and inventory. Something happened about 10 years ago. The bargins disappeared, so did the selection. The classical annex on Sunset was a notable exception.
David
What #11 said.
My first go round with King Crimson was because of the cover. I loved what was inside even more. There are a whole bunch of albums in the same category.
Just in time for the holidays
How to Rip LPs to MP3 in 10 Easy Steps.
1) Use an LP player that has an output (high quality the better)
2) Download a audio program that records (your choice)
3) Get a cable that will go from your player to a 3.5mm jack (standard small audio jack).
4) Plug cable in to LP player & computer line in
5) Select your recording input as Line In
6) Hit Record
6) Play LP.
7) Save file.
8) Edit file to split up the tracks and save as different tracks.
9) Add meta data with your favorite program.
23,
It’s step 8 that makes me procrastinate. I forsee that will take a loooong time for my collection.
It’s step 8 that makes me procrastinate. I forsee that will take a loooong time for my collection.
http://www.enhancedaudio.com/dc_six.htm
That will do it all. But is it worth $169?
I’ve been wondering. Pick up a copy and let me know, would you?
hehe. Listen to their demos, though.
Well, that would translate to less than a buck per album, so I’l try the software and give you guys a report.
I too lived through the headache of record stores (both for LPs and CDs). I guess most of you don’t remember all the horrid music you bought because the cover art “captured your interest.” You seem to have forgotten all the albums you bought that had one decent song and the rest was crap but you still paid $12-$18 for it. You have forgotten the financial dilemmas about whether you should take a chance on an album with the last few dollars in your pocket or wait until one of your friends bought it so you could listen to it first. How much music did you not find out about because it wasn’t “popular” enough to stock on the shelves? How many times did you have to go ferret out imports of songs because the label figured that the European version didn’t “target” the US market? Even with eccentric music stores, finding new music that pushed the boundaries was difficult. Sorry, but I feel no remorse in the demise of Tower. While generally priced better than others, it was still overpriced for what I got.
To be frank, a decent song and cool cover art once upon a time was worth it. I still have my copy of The Vapors’ “New Clear Days”. You kids are spoiled.
I remember when CDs first came out and a bunch of wieners insisted that they had to contain 70 minutes of music or they were being ripped off. You guys just don’t appreciate the spread-spectrum appeciative aspect of music. One person’s fish is another’s poisson.
(I’m Back! I guess the United Arab Emirates thought you guys weren’t so evil after all. More likely, they didn’t want John to write a column about them. They almost NEVER unblock a site once they block it.)
Saving Albums Do you know of anyone making an organized effort to digitize albums and covers to save albums for posterity? If you know of such a group, I’d like to join it.
Leave me a message here, please. I know some guys with SERIOUS album collections that could easily disappear over the decades if someone doesn’t save them.
My two cents worth:
1) TotalRecorderPro is my favorite encoding software (and I have a bunch, including ProTools and Audition). TR has the perfect set of features with ease of use for grabbing audio.
Basically, it replaces the Windows sound card driver with it’s own, so it can record anything you can hear on your speakers. It can also stream rip.
It accepts any codec I’ve ever found, including the only three that really matter: LAME, VoggOrbis and FLAC.
For catching streaming audio, it has the three main features you want: removal of silence; an on-off timer; and the ability to log-into a stream at a certain time and log-off.
For digitizing your albums it has the two main tools you need: track splitting; and auto-off at extended silence.
2) For downloading I’ve become a huge fan of eMusic — which features independent labels and artists. This is not the site to get Madonna or Rolling Stones but it is the site to discover the coolest musicians.
It a subscription of 30 songs a month for $10. So, it’s about a third of iTunes. Gotta like that! And you get plain-old tagged MP3s with no DRM, whatsoever, that can play on anything.. Gotta LOVE that!