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4/17/2008

Music

THE CRATE DEBATE
A digitally minded take on Record Store Day

By Justin Strout

As I write this, Marci Brinker at Insomnia Radio: Orlando is turning me on to an interesting local singer named Timothy Simpson. Simultaneously, a friend is instant-messaging a live Jens Lekman bootleg of a show in Sweden, and my IndieFeed podcast is readying a song by Chi-town battle MC Verbal Kent. Next to that download, Santa Monica’s KCRW public radio wants me to hear a Paul Simon knockoff called Everest. A look at my Internet tabs shows a forum discussion on MusicBanter.com regarding whether or not Gogol Bordello is really gypsy punk; news of an Orlando date for the reunited Stone Temple Pilots tour; and, to drive home the meta, a Chuck Klosterman article in Esquire about why people aren’t buying music. (Turns out, they don’t want to spend money.)

Oh, and I’m also carrying on another IM conversation with a fellow music writer who is telling me not to write this article about Record Store Day, a promotion by the national Coalition of Independent Music Stores (CIMS) coming April 19. (Go to www.orlandoweekly.com/blog/music.asp to read our debate.)

In other words, I couldn’t be more jacked-up with music and music-related trivia if I had a Ramones-sticker-adorned IV drip attached to my hip. Maybe that’s why the announcement of Record Store Day made me nauseous. It’s an attempt to enlighten a younger generation on the merits of good ol’ fashioned record stores and was born out of the wildly successful idea of Comic Book Day. What should be a celebration, however, rings hollow today because I (like millions of people around the world) get my fill of new, hard-to-find and, most importantly, good music at the click of a mouse. Why be guilt-tripped into shopping at a record store out of loyalty and sentimentality? What do record stores offer consumers that they can’t get elsewhere for less money?

Nothing.

The standard price of CDs has gone down in recent years, thanks to illegal downloading, and hovers around $13 up to a high of $18. The average album price is $9.99 at iTunes and Amazon.com, and the offered compression rate at both sites is 256 kbps, the standard CD compression. There is greater selectivity online, a wealth of user reviews give opinions instead of just the store clerk, and music purchased can travel with you on your phone.

No amount of cheerleading in the form of Record Store Day can convince me that record stores are not becoming relics. And speaking of relics, almost immediately after the concept for RSD was launched, Metallica jumped on the event, promising an in-store signing (not performance) at San Francisco’s Rasputin Music. Remember, this is the seminal metal band that became a sensation in the ’80s due to an illegal tape-trading network established by their fans and the band that became the figurehead for the anti-downloading fervor of the Napster era. Metallica is a strange champion, if the point of Record Store Day is to draw digital music users back into stores.

“For some reason, there’s a certain segment of young people who don’t understand [Metallica’s position] because they grew up with everything free on the Internet,” says Fred Ehmen of Rock & Roll Heaven, a longtime independent record outlet in Orlando.

Without question, illegal downloading is wrong, morally and fiscally – even if it’s as common as drinking water by now. But what about the fans who get their music instantly and legally?

Even the CIMS itself doesn’t offer a compelling case for the viability of record stores. A look at the coalition’s website offers this testimony by Jason Wade, singer for Lifehouse, “[A record store is] a place where you … hang out with your imaginary friends.”

A-ha.

“Whether it is in the physical world or online, the value of a great and knowledgeable record store has not gone away,” Peter Gabriel writes.

Or online, you say?

Shelby Lynne helpfully suggests, “You can’t roll a joint on an iPod!”

This is why I should hop in my gas guzzler to drive to a shop?

Sandy Bitman doesn’t argue the logic of buying online. “I absolutely can see why iTunes is the No. 1 retailer [of music, recently taking the top spot from Wal-Mart],” says the owner of Park Ave CDs in Orlando and a member of the CIMS who has big plans for Record Store Day. “However, what iTunes lacks is human interaction. Independent record stores provide that interaction along with a sense of community building and cultural exposure.”

Ehmen bristles at the new culture. “iTunes, Wal-Mart – those people had no say in the building of the music industry and now they’re in control. Now they dictate exactly what goes in the bins. It’s all corporate greed in the end.”

Bitman speaks to those same concerns. “It benefits the corporations to say [physical media] is dead because they’ve brought in these golden boys who are all about digital and make that the new model,” Bitman says. “So it’s their jobs on the line if digital’s not the only future.

“If you take down the physical media business, a lot is going down with it – including record stores, including an artist’s well-being,” he says.

That argument doesn’t hold up entirely, as artists stand to make a lot more money if they can sell their music directly to buyers and cut out the corporate middleman. The music story of the last year is that Radiohead sold millions of copies of their new album without the aid of a record label or brick-and-mortar shops.

But being a music lover has never been about consumer practicality. It’s something more personal, more abstract, something felt in the gut. Ultimately, that gut feeling is what’s causing my nausea over Record Store Day. No Save-the-Whales-style day of remembrance is going to change the fact that today’s record stores can’t compete against digital enterprises.

On a brighter note, the future of music is exciting, and it’s been less than a dog year since iTunes changed everything. It is possible for independent record stores to adapt (one word: beer) before they become icons of the past. The winning model so far has been a gradual digital incorporation along with added bonuses like in-store performances, but who knows how long that will hold?

As for Record Store Day, “It’s nice that somebody’s trying something, but it’s actually a little too late,” Ehmen says.

Amen.

music@orlandoweekly.com

Comments on this story:

On 4/22/2008 2:12:23 PM, Marci said:

Thanks so much for checking out my podcast and mentioning it. It's a lot of work, but it's very rewarding to turn people on to great local artists like Timothy Simpson. I've done 23 episodes so far and after a little reorganizing among the Insomnia Radio family, I plan to continue producing more. I hope more people will check out my free podcast and the other Insomnia Radio shows at http://insomniaradio.net (look for me under the IR:Regional category) and more bands will utilize us as a resource to get the word out about their music. Having read Justin Strout's "The Crate Debate," as well the Weekly music blog debate between Mr. Strout and Jason Ferguson, I must say that I fall somewhere in the middle. I find the majority of the new music I listen to on podcasts and MySpace, and I am purchasing more music digitally than ever. I never buy CDs at large retailers, but I do still like checking out the bins and listening stations at Park Ave CDs. I probably wouldn't notice if they were the only ones left in town, but I would miss them if they were gone. Marci Brinker host, Insomnia Radio: Orlando orlando@insomniaradio.net

On 4/24/2008 11:16:37 AM, mhable said:

I think this is article is absolutely absurd. The day the record store dies is the day music itself dies. Take your iPod and try plugging it into my hi-fi system and tell me it sounds good. You can't. The record store is not just a place to get music, it is an institution that should survive this digital instant gratification culture that everyone seems to adopt so easily. Hitler sure got plenty Germans to follow him blindly. So go forth, support your local internet mega-corporation for your music. I guess I will use the internet to find more valuable resources of information of what is actually going on in my community. Thanks Orlando Weekly for finally showing how out of touch with reality you actually are.

On 4/24/2008 2:00:45 PM, Justin Strout said:

There are many reactions I assumed would come of this article, but being compared to Hitler's army is just ... wow. In the piece, I suggested record stores couldn't win over a new generation of music lovers with guilt trips but clearly I underestimated how welcoming and warm the die-hards could be. This changes everything.

On 4/24/2008 3:02:42 PM, Ian Monroe said:

haha! Justin got Godwin-ed!!

On 4/25/2008 4:32:33 PM, mhable said:

Perhaps a bit extreme of a comparison but an example regardless of how blindly some people follow the hype of new ideas whether they are actually more beneficial or detrimental to society. There is a very big difference between low fidelity and high fidelity. I want to hear the music the way the artist intended it to be heard, with as little compression and lost frequencies as possible. Sorry, call me a die-hard, but I care about music.

On 4/26/2008 4:22:39 AM, Justin Strout said:

I would argue, mhable, that you're speaking more from the point of view of an audiophile than a music lover. An analogy: In addition to music, I also live and breathe film. Whether I watch, say, Ninotchka on cassette, DVD, or an avi file, neither choice means I love the movie more or less. But if I shell out the dough to watch it on Blu-Ray (if it were available), it's likely that I care about technical ratios more than others. But not the movie. I know many musicians and all of them would agree that they'd much prefer a listener "feels" the music as they intended rather than they hear the exact fidelity recorded from their amps. Or these days, hell, they care more that the listener hears it at all.

On 4/26/2008 2:38:03 PM, Chili Palmer said:

Justin, it sounds like you did no research for this article and just wrote it off the top of your head, which is a dis-service to the entire Orlando music community. For example, you don't need to be an audiophile to hear the difference between iTunes/Amazon downloads and a CD. CD quality is MUCH higher. And standard iTunes downloads are not 256 kbps, but 128 kbps AAC. Only iTunes Plus downloads are 256 - and those are pretty much limited to EMI content at this time. When was the last time you even visited a record store, and saw people being turned on to new bands they've never heard of before? Or experienced the social aspect of hanging out at a record store? I don't think you deserve to be Music Editor at the Orlando Weekly. They need someone knowledgeable and at least willing to do proper research before writing an article.

On 4/26/2008 11:19:03 PM, Justin Strout said:

Chili,Please note the first-person narrative. It's an opinion piece. Congrats on the observation, but I said 256 is "offered" at both iTunes and Amazon. I still maintain that most musicians don't give a mouse's ass how you hear their songs, as long as you hear them. Regardless, I never argued against physical media, people. Just that buying (even physical) CDs or hard-to-find vinyl is far more consumer-beneficial when purchased at eBay or other online sites. My question remains, what consumer benefit, other than a warm and fuzzy feeling, can a brick and mortar offer? That's not been answered yet.

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