Why I Buy Music (From a Record Store)

I walked up 30th Avenue in the bitter cold all the way to Steinway before I saw the hole in the wall they called Sound City, the record store I found on the internet in desperate search of a place where I could buy music. It was a little disappointing, sliding through that door only to see an establishment the size of a living room, holding only a handful of racks of records and cds. VHS and cassette tapes were also present, sitting forlornly on the floor. This isn't a record store, I thought to myself, as the bells on top of the door chimed to signal that the mid November cold had indeed been shut out. Vintage Vinyl (where I worked for more than two years) now that was a record store. It was gigantic, one of the last behemoths from a bygone era, filled to the breaking point with all kinds of music and dvds and music memorabilia. I guess that's the closest I'll ever get to knowing how the last T. Rex must have felt when those furry four-legged live-birthing animals started to take over. After lamenting for a bit about the gradual demise of the neighborhood record stores, I dove right in to the pitiful jazz and blues collection, hoping to find something worth purchasing.

So far New York has been 0-for-2 in the record store department. The first one I visited was in Williamsburg, my first foray into the hipster capital of the planet, gentrified to the point of being a parody (it was also the sight of the biggest burger mishap in my 22 year history, a story for another day). I know it's foolish to expect New York to have a record store even approaching the size of Vintage Vinyl. Space is too valuable in this city, and a record store in todays environment would never sell enough merchandise to justify the square footage used. But still, one of the things I miss about St. Louis is knowing for damn sure that I could walk into Vintage and know that I could find something to buy, something that would catch my interest, an absurdist French film from the Criterion Collection, a hip-hop album from the All Natural label in Chicago, a classic rock album on vinyl that I should have had a long time ago.

It's silly really, because there are so many options for a music lover like me today; in many ways this is the golden age for people who love music. In addition to going to the ever dwindling number of record stores, I can download music at will from Limewire (and don't get it twisted I will download the HELL out of a hot single or any artist that has no business making albums). I can order music on iTunes, I can buy the tangible product on Amazon or eBay. I can create my own personal radio station at Pandora or watch all the mid-90's music videos on Youtube. If people in the 1970's had this plethora of options, I honestly think that they're heads would have spontaneously combusted.
But nothing is 100% good, and the ability to get music from a myraid of sources means that there is less opportunity for interaction with other people in the music buying experience. Don't get me wrong, I revel in the fact that the greedy SonyBMG's of the world are slowly but surely getting their comeuppance. I also understand that in order to get that comeuppance, the record stores which acted as gatekeepers for their collective monopoly had to be considerably scaled down. I shed exactly zero tears for the demise of Sam Goody or Tower Records- and only a few for even the demise of the independent store. Like the man at Sound City told me, "I'm not bitter." How can you be? Times change because technology changes it; people always gravitate to that which is cheaper and easier- the definition of convenient. Music is meant to be heard and any way that helps for the greatest variety of music to be heard by the greatest number of people is fine.

For me though it boils down to being able to fulfill a combination of experiences. Buying music off of the internet satisfies my need for something tangible, satisfies the combination of touch, sight, sound, and smell which helps to create my visceral experience of listening to music. Where it fails is my need for instant gratification- even with expedited shipping it takes time for it to arrive, too much time. Buying from iTunes or downloading off the internet has the opposite problem. The gratification is even more instant, I don't have to brave the New York cold, I only have to make sure that my internet connection is working and that I have the stamina to reach my desktop in the living room. But there's nothing to touch, except sticky keys, headphones, and my rundown yet still sleek, black and silver ipod.

While sight is definitely the most magical of our senses, it's that combination with touch that truly helps to inform reality, and more importantly, physicality. I miss my girlfriend; and when I say that I want to see her, I don't literally just want to see her. What I mean is that I want to experience her physicality, not just sexually, but her very presence in my vicinity. Maybe that's how I can best describe it. Music on iTunes, music that I downloaded off LimeWire, it has no true presence. It's only announcement that it is in fact real, is the computer on which it is stored before I transfer it to my iPod. But a computer does a lot of other things too; music loses its own special place and becomes just one of many functions of my 5year old HP. On the iPod it becomes just a jumbled mass with no differentiation except for the intangible folders that they are stored in.

For better or worse, the music I play on a cd or record has presence. The crates that take up too much space in the back of our kitchen nook constantly remind me. When I want to play I record, true I have to go through a process rather than just pushing a button (and making sure that it has enough battery power). And it's true that I cannot shuffle my records, if I want to hear another artists I have to take the record off, put it back in its sleeve (most of the time), and then put another record on, making sure the stylus is just right. It's the price you pay for physicality of the smooth dust filled vinyl or the glossy liner notes inside the cd case- the feeling you get when you want to put on that Sonny Rollins and Sonny Stitt record to accompany that dinner you took precious time to make. It's the price you pay for the ability to be mesmerized by the dusky moonlight orange color of the record case and the picture of Rollins and Stitt playing somewhere way far out of their minds. It's almost religious sometimes, when it's done right it's like you're performing a sacrament and it's always gratifying.

After accounting for the ability to touch and my inability to wait, there's finally the ability to interact. The physicality of the actually piece of music extends to the presence of those who can give me information or advice. I mean, there are is an innumerable amount of websites which can give you advice about what type of music you may like; shoot Amazon does a much better job of that then say a random record store clerk. But it's not just strictly about the information, it's also about the interaction no matter how fleeting it is. Let's be real, you don't ever really get to know the clerk who is ringing up your cds (or tomatoes or a large flatscreen tv)- but the ability to make small talk, and the tiny chance that you may in fact make a friend, or at the very least an acquaintance is nice in and of itself. And buying music is just a bit different than buying something like tomatoes or even a flatscreen. Buying music by its nature fosters some kind of connection, because behind each discreet unit there's an interesting reason for the buy- a reason beyond "I'm hungry," or "I want to be able to see the game from the outer edges of the solar system." The opportunities just present themselves so much more readily, because music lends itself to deep opinions and endless comparisons in ways that other buying options do not. From there, the road to other topics is pretty straightforward.
The man from Sound City and I talked about Howlin' Wolf and Miles Davis, our childhood dreams of being musicians, our current jobs, books we were reading, he even let me borrow one before I left. It was pretty lame, one of those simplistic self-help books that try and pass themselves off as deep and end up selling 2 million copies. But it's the thought that counts. And when I walk in, he calls me Mr. Rodriguez (still a weird experience for me) and gives me long-winded explanations for his recommendations or the reason behind why a certain cd hasn't come in. Then he'll go back to yelling at some guy on the phone or telling some aging hip-hop connosseiur that his Ludacris special order hasn't come in yet. The experience is hilarious, the walk is tiring, and Sound City guy can be mildly annoying at times. It's something I come back to every week, and while I'll keep buying music from a record store for as long as they're still open.

**Add-on**: As an ending aside, I think that the record industry should go to a two tier kind of model. Eventually, it might be forced upon them if they want to stay viable. There are plenty of artists who make hot songs that have absolutely no business making an album. None. They just do not have the talent, inclination, or the stable of producers to make an album worth listening to, and so, quite simply, they shouldn't. Only two kinds of artist should make an album: Superstars who the record company is willing to put all kinds of money behind in order for them to succeed, and really talented artists who have the creativity necessary to make varied songs around a central theme. What ends up happening with these other people- the ones who put out a hot single or two and then have to rush back to the studio to make an album- is that their entire album sounds like a crappier version of the single, and nobody wants to buy that. Not on iTunes and definitely not in a store. So instead they should just be singles artists, putting out hot songs when the inspiration comes, until they prove themselves worthy of making an album. There's nothing wrong with singles artists- James Brown was a singles artists for most of his career and he's one of the top 5-10 music artists in modern history.