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Japan has more old-fashioned music stores than anywhere else

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Re: Japan has more old-fashioned music stores than anywhere else

#11

Post by cr1895 »

sixQuarks wrote: post #4

I went to a very large music store in a heavily trafficked area of Portland recently and realized how useless this type of store has become. Unlike a bookstore, it's not fun to "browse" music physically, we have become spoiled by services such as spotify. Here is what it looked like inside, nearly empty of shoppers: http://i.imgur.com/kcrYKG6.jpg

Record stores are doing great where I live in the Netherlands, and I couldn't disagree more that it's not fun to browse a music store. I love spending an afternoon flipping through records; fortunately there are 8-9 of them whose owners haven't decided were useless within an hour and a half of me. Some, like Rush Hour in Amsterdam, really are thriving and often very crowded. That one in particular frequently has DJs and hosts radio shows on occasion.

Re: Japan has more old-fashioned music stores than anywhere else

#12

Post by cr1895 »

TD-Linux wrote: post #6
sixQuarks wrote: post #4

I went to a very large music store in a heavily trafficked area of Portland recently and realized how useless this type of store has become. Unlike a bookstore, it's not fun to "browse" music physically, we have become spoiled by services such as spotify. Here is what it looked like inside, nearly empty of shoppers: http://i.imgur.com/kcrYKG6.jpg

I would be very interested in an article about how people still shop and select music in these stores. Most doujin music artists post cross-fade previews on Soundcloud so you know what you want before going, but I don't think that's true of all genres.

Here's a nice article:

http://www.soundandvision.com/content/vinyl-obsession-revill...

Re: Japan has more old-fashioned music stores than anywhere else

#13

Post by sixQuarks »

k-mcgrady wrote: post #7
sixQuarks wrote: post #4

I went to a very large music store in a heavily trafficked area of Portland recently and realized how useless this type of store has become. Unlike a bookstore, it's not fun to "browse" music physically, we have become spoiled by services such as spotify. Here is what it looked like inside, nearly empty of shoppers: http://i.imgur.com/kcrYKG6.jpg

>> "Unlike a bookstore, it's not fun to "browse" music physically" I enjoy browsing a music store much more than a book store.

what are the things you enjoy about it?

Re: Japan has more old-fashioned music stores than anywhere else

#15

Post by bitwize »

I witnessed Tower Records asplode in 2007 in graphic detail when a very large and very well-stocked Tower shop jn Portland, OR was forced to sell off every scrap of inventory (allowing me to stock up on Danger Mouse (the cartoon, not the DJ) DVDs, among other things).

Imagine my surprise when I landed in Osaka in 2011 and saw Tower Records still very much a thing there.

Re: Japan has more old-fashioned music stores than anywhere else

#16

Post by cholantesh »

DanBC wrote: post #9
sixQuarks wrote: post #4

I went to a very large music store in a heavily trafficked area of Portland recently and realized how useless this type of store has become. Unlike a bookstore, it's not fun to "browse" music physically, we have become spoiled by services such as spotify. Here is what it looked like inside, nearly empty of shoppers: http://i.imgur.com/kcrYKG6.jpg

A good music store has excellent curation, which is still not a solved problem for online stores. (IMDB's "People who liked this also liked..." has got much worse over time.) There's also a bunch of sub-culture signalling, which I accept is off-putting to many people. But the fact that at least two reasonably good films were set in record stores means something.

>A good music store has excellent curation, which is still not a solved problem for online stores

I'm not sure it's truly a solved problem for brick and mortar, either. For a big box, curation is generally done at the corporate level, and their staff are not much more knowledgeable than the average patron.

Re: Japan has more old-fashioned music stores than anywhere else

#17

Post by k-mcgrady »

sixQuarks wrote: post #13
k-mcgrady wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> "Unlike a bookstore, it's not fun to "browse" music physically" I enjoy browsing a music store much more than a book store.

what are the things you enjoy about it?

I find it much easier to discover something I don't know but enjoy if I purchase. A bookstore is fun to browse too but I find the chance of success much lower and the investment much higher. I guess it all does depend on the type of store you try. Large retailers are going to be a much different experience than small niche stores although both have their pros and cons.

Re: Japan has more old-fashioned music stores than anywhere else

#18

Post by cr1895 »

sixQuarks wrote: post #13
k-mcgrady wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> "Unlike a bookstore, it's not fun to "browse" music physically" I enjoy browsing a music store much more than a book store.

what are the things you enjoy about it?

Why I love my local record shops:

* chatting with the owner who is supremely knowledgeable about the kinds of music I like, and buying records based on his advice

* looking for something similar to music I've found online, perhaps by the same artist or label

* looking for music I can't easily stream online, such as jazz from the ECM label. I stumbled upon one album while digging last time I went that I'd had in my sights for a while, but bought it for half what it would have cost on discogs (like an eBay/catalog for music). Or the Zimbabwean soukous album I just got that is super funky that doesn't exist online at all, and I'd never have heard had I not picked it up in the record shop for a listen.

* looking at cool things that I won't easily find online but probably also won't actually buy (e.g. the €70 original pressing 1970s Ghanaian highlife, or any other unusual rarity)

I'm super passionate about music and I love everything about the physical aspects of vinyl, so hopefully now you can see how ridiculous it is to suggest that record stores are useless because Spotify and the like exist. I'm listening to Spotify all the time too, but I definitely love my records more. I'm definitely not the only one.

Re: Japan has more old-fashioned music stores than anywhere else

#19

Post by jeffwass »

cr1895 wrote: post #18
sixQuarks wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what are the things you enjoy about it?

Why I love my local record shops: * chatting with the owner who is supremely knowledgeable about the kinds of music I like, and buying records based on his advice * looking for something similar to music I've found online, perhaps by the same artist or label * looking for music I can't easily stream online, such as jazz from the ECM label. I stumbled upon one album while digging last time I went that I'd had in my si…

Question - do you rip your vinyl to digital format? Or do you keep listening to the physical media?

Re: Japan has more old-fashioned music stores than anywhere else

#20

Post by davidgerard »

bitwize wrote: post #15

I witnessed Tower Records asplode in 2007 in graphic detail when a very large and very well-stocked Tower shop jn Portland, OR was forced to sell off every scrap of inventory (allowing me to stock up on Danger Mouse (the cartoon, not the DJ) DVDs, among other things). Imagine my surprise when I landed in Osaka in 2011 and saw Tower Records still very much a thing there.

Dangerous Minds has a somewhat ranty article going into precisely how the majors destroyed the record business in the late 1990s:

http://dangerousminds.net/comments/the_rise_and_fall_of_towe...

That said, they had some idea what they were doing: they cut the least profitable 25% of their artists and SKUs, dropping unit sales by 4.1%, then blamed "piracy":

http://web.archive.org/web/20030113094231/http://www.azoz.co...

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