Last night, Julie and I went to our local Barnes and Noble to look at books and the latest offerings of Nook devices. My Nook is a first generation reader and because tech companies want you to always have the newest, they stopped updating the software on my old Nook, so it crashes when it goes into sleep mode — which means I have to reboot it every time I let it sit idle. Annoying. My birthday is coming up in a little over a week, so I said to Julie, “Instead of a bunch of gifts, how ’bout everyone in the family just throw in some cash for a new Nook. I don’t really need anything, and plus most of us are broke these days, so let’s just have fun at the party and not have people worry over what to get me.”
While at the store, I was talking to the store manager (who was answering questions about the current lineup of Nooks). He said something I found astonishing: independent bookstores are coming back. B&N and Borders were like the Blockbuster Video stores for the book business. Their “Lower prices; more locations” model pushed the only other bookstore in Walnut Creek out of business, and now that Amazon has such a large share of the book business these days, I just figured it was only a matter of time before B&N shuttered all their stores and focused on their online business. However, it seems people like book browsing in a brick and mortar store, so not only is B&N doing better in terms of sales (not great, mind you), but independent bookstores are also thriving in some areas of the country. Also, digital book buying has flattened. People use their iPads for things other than reading books and magazines. Nook readers, however, generally do read books and magazines on their readers and often ignore the other features that are available on most smart phones. But overall, the trend is that e-books are starting to plateau. Now, all that can change, but for now, the state of the book publishing business is still skewed toward “print books.”
After we finished talking to the manager, I went over to browse CDs (yeah, CDs) at B&N’s music and DVD section, and in the $4.99 bin were a bunch of CDs I had only had on vinyl. I figured at $4.99 a pop, it was a pretty good deal for new CDs of albums I already knew were good. So what did I get?
I don’t know why I never bought the CD version of the record. It’s a solid album from Foreigner — with “Side 1” being better than “Side 2.” The “bonus” on this CD are some acoustic versions of two songs (“Juke Box Hero,” and “Waiting For a Girl Like You”) which showcase Lou Gramm’s voice before it got shot. Also, fun fact: Thomas “She Blinded Me With Science” Dolby played the synthesizer on “Urgent.” He’s listed on the album credits as “Tom Dolby.”
Another one where I have the LP, but never bought the CD. Lots of great songs on this one, too. Another fun fact: Mick Jones from Foreigner was brought in as a producer and, according to Sammy Hagar, really helped him with his vocals on the record. Check out “Dreams” for how far his vocal range was pushed.
This one I never had the actual LP. I had a compilation CD with “Kool Thing” on it and have always loved that song. I figured for $4.99, it was worth getting the entire album since I’m reasonably sure that in 1990 bands weren’t in the habit of churning out albums that had only one or two good songs on them — especially Sonic Youth. Oh, and one more fun fact: This album was in no way associated with Thomas Dolby, Mick Jones, or Van Halen.
While the cashier was totaling up my purchases (a little over $16 for three new CDs!), she mentioned that “Goo” was a great album. I quipped, “Well, I might as well get the CDs now, since that format is going the way of the dinosaurs.” The response from this 19 or 20 year old? “Hey, I still listen to cassettes.”
What the…
I asked if she has a cassette recorder, and she said she did and often records songs off the radio. I had to check my phone to see what year it was.
“Wait. You can still buy blank cassette tapes?” I asked.
“Yeah. At Half-Price Books they sell them for fifty cents.” she said, and then added, “A lot of bands I’m into record their songs on cassette and pass them around to their fans. Most of the people I know have boom boxes, so we just play them on those. I also have a cassette player in my car.”
I was stunned. What the hell was going on? Taping songs off the radio? Cassette players in cars? Boom boxes? In this age when you can get music pretty much for free, why on earth would anyone bother with cassettes — especially late teens or young twentysomethings? I thought, well, the bands this person likes were described as punk bands, and I just figured that those bands wanted to be underground — and a way to do so was to shun the Internet and go low tech. It reinforces that exclusivity in music that I used to crave at that age — but rarely got.
So here we are in 2014: independent bookstores starting to thrive and “the kids” turning to cassettes and vinyl as a preferred music format.
I guess my dream in my late 20s of starting a book and record store isn’t as dead as I thought it was.
Rob Smith
April 25, 2014 at 4:34 pmThough I can’t imagine why anyone would want to go back to cassettes, I take it as a good sign that there are people out there (however small a number they might be) who wish to invest in things like tapes, paper-and-ink books, and my beloved vinyl records. I was recently interviewed (by our old friend Don Fluckinger) for an article on the resurgence in interest in vinyl, and I noted something along the lines of how I think our investment in music increases when we actually invest something — namely, money — in something we can hold in our hands. An electronic file that we can’t see and probably stole is just not worth the same thing to us as an actual artifact we had to fork over hard-earned cash or allowance for and can then take home and take care of. There’s nothing wrong with clicking a mouse and being able to hear anything we want, at any time, but I just don’t think we’re as engaged with the art or artistry as much as we once were, because what we’re willing to put into it is minimal, and what we get in return is audible, but not tactile.
And I want to own a record store, too. I even have a spot picked out, soon as those damned accountants move out of it.
As for books, I do not own an e-reader and have no real desire to, though I hold no grudges toward anyone who does. My take is, I look at enough electronic material on screens at work, at home, on my phone, etc. I prefer to read words written in ink, on paper, bound nicely into something I can hold in my hands. One day, though, I will die, and those who pack their e-readers full of the stuff I keep on shelves will win the day. If sales of e-books have indeed plateaued, I imagine it is a temporary situation, one day soon to be rectified by the dropping of a price point or three on e-readers, and the opening of an online outlaw’s playground of stealable e-books, like the ones that have existed for music for 15 or so years. Such a playground might actually exist now; I don’t know. I wonder if our investment in what we read would decrease, were e-books as freely filching-friendly as MP3s.
I’m rambling, I’m sure. But this post, along with our friend Jeff Giles’ 4/18 editorial in Popdose on the streaming economy (which I only got around to reading today), got me thinking about this today. Does our engagement with art change with the delivery mechanism? I think it does.
And those were terrific CD purchases.
Ted
April 26, 2014 at 6:55 amWow Rob! Your comment is almost a blog post in itself — and a well stated one at that. I agree that people put more value on physical objects (maybe that’s part of the reason why people spend hundreds and thousands of dollars on phones, tablets and computers, but expect the content on the Internet to be free).
I’m heartened that books and records are becoming valued again — and by that I mean paper and ink books and vinyl. I just hope that translates into enough people spending money on them for record stores and books stores to exist in greater numbers again.
Gina
May 2, 2014 at 8:37 amOh God, I remember listening to Foreigner 4 constantly when it came out. My Dad was/is a big rock music fan and of course as his daughter I absorbed a lot of his musical tastes. Another album I listened to a lot was the first Asia album.
Yeah, cassette tapes sort of leave a lot to be desired, but vinyl is a whole other story. I’ve been reading a bunch of things that state vinyl is making a comeback, but I wonder if it is just hype. Or perhaps it is just a very small subset of audiophiles who are vocal about their preferences.
I will admit, vinyl sounds better though!
Ted
May 3, 2014 at 12:42 pmI think with Foreigner 4, how could you NOT listen to that over and over back in the day. I don’t have sales figures, but I’m guessing that was their best selling album up to that point. I have two older brothers, so part of my music upbringing had a very strong rock background. But by 1981, I was thoroughly into rock and new wave. I didn’t feel I had to choose sides. 🙂
Also, vinyl does sound better — but only when it’s pressed in the “proper” way. Do you remember those Columbia Record Club type things where you could get 10 records for $1 or a penny or something like that. Well, many of those records were pressed pretty cheaply, and the sound quality was horrible.
Rob Smith
May 3, 2014 at 4:16 pm“Juke Box Hero” was the first song my father ever told me to turn down.
I had a bunch of those Columbia House LPs, most of which were indeed crap. Today, when I’m out cratedigging, I look for the telltale “CRC” or “Produced by the BMG Music Group” designation, and I avoid buying them.
That said, my old copies of Toto IV, Journey’s Escape, and, yes, Foreigner 4 are all from my first Columbia House shipments back in the day, and they all still play just fine. Go figure.
Ted
May 4, 2014 at 1:45 pmMy parents hated all the KISS records I used to play when I was 11 or 12, so anything by KISS was just “Oh, turn it off!”
I was trying to see if there was an article about those CRC records and why they sound so lousy, and it seems it just depends who did the mastering to vinyl and what process they used. I read this article and it had some interesting (and technical) advice for mastering engineers: http://www.recordingmag.com/resources/resourceDetail/114.html
Maybe BMG Music Group cheaped out on the mastering process (no surprise since they were offering records at a low price — well, at least initially). The one thing the article linked above stated was to keep each side of an LP short. If you pack too many songs onto a side, the signal gets degraded and sounds like crap on the songs that are at the end of a side. You want the grooves on the disc as wide as possible. I supposed that’s why the vinyl edition of the “corrected” version of “Skylarking” is spread across four discs and the playback it at 45 rpm. With good speakers, turntable, and a decent amp, I’m sure that record is a sonic feast.