Where once the record shop was the centre of the music fan's universe, today most people buy their albums online . . . is it time to finally write the record shop's obituary, asks JIM CARROLL
WHEN WAS the last time you were in a record shop? You may have dropped into one back in December on the hunt for a last-minute Christmas present. You might have passed one since and made a mental note to go in at the weekend to get some new release you’d heard on the radio or old favourite you wanted for your collection.
Then you went home, turned on your laptop and went online to buy the CD from Play, get the album from iTunes or listen to the stream on Spotify (or download the album illegally). You may even have done one of the above on the way home on your phone. You don’t need a record store any more to get your hands on music.
But some people, especially those behind Record Store Day, next Saturday, an event seeking to highlight independent music retailers worldwide, passionately believe we still need record stores.
It’s a strange turn of events.
Once upon a time the notion of a special day to promote record shops would have been laughed at. Back then (and we're talking about the start of the millennium rather than ancient history) there was still only one way to get music, and that was to go into a store and face down a shop assistant who would make Jack Black's character in High Fidelitylook like a well-adjusted human being.
It’s a different story now. A huge number of music fans have simply got out of the habit of going to a bricks-and-mortar shop to buy their music.
There’s a direct correlation between the increasing number of online retail outlets and cloud-based services and the reduced number of shops on your local high street.
There are also numerous other reasons for people dropping the record-shop habit (lack of time and disposable income, for instance), but the ubiquity and ease of use of online outlets, not to mention their endless choice of stock, have done the most damage. Add the commercial problems shops face with high rents and rates, as well as competition from supermarkets, and you can see why so many are closing down.
Record Store Day wants to remind people of the strong link between record shops and music and try to persuade music fans to go shopping and browsing again.
The day will be marked with limited-edition vinyl and CD releases from Kings of Leon, Gorillaz, Adele, Fleet Foxes, REM and others, as well as artists performing in participating stores, including 15 independent shops in Ireland.
That number is significantly down on last year. Since Record Store Day 2010, Road Records, City Discs, Comet Records (all Dublin), Redlight, Zhivago (both Galway) and BPM (Waterford and Wexford) have closed their doors.
The music stores that remain also face challenges. The HMV chain, which has 28 stores in Ireland, has had much-documented trading difficulties, while Tower Records, which operates two shops in the middle of Dublin, recently made a number of staff redundant.
Instead of selling just CDs and vinyl, shops have had to diversify to pay the bills. Record shops are now trying to be one-stop entertainment hubs, flogging DVDs, tickets, books, games and all manner of knick-knacks, from Jedward posters to Kiss dolls, in addition to music. Some, like Tower, have given over floor space to a cafe, and there’s probably more profit to be had from a cup of coffee than a CD.
But as record stores downsize or disappear from the retail landscape, there has never been so much music on release. It was often felt that a vibrant record-shop culture was essential for the health of a local music ecosystem: this does not appear to be the case.
It’s true that some independent record shops played an important part in promoting and highlighting new acts and releases. But most shops were not so proactive when it came to supporting new acts and preferred to concentrate on mainstream acts and releases. Even trying to persuade these stores to stock an independent Irish release was a Herculean task.
Last year, as important Irish shops such as Road were pulling down the shutters for the last time, more than 200 new Irish albums went on release. Some of the albums were only available as downloads or streams, but many releases were on CD and vinyl and could be purchased from the bands’ websites and at live shows. It turns out bands at every level can survive without the shops, as fans find out about the bands and acquire their releases elsewhere.
It’s not quite time yet to write the obituary for the record shop and there are a couple of bright spots in the dispatches. Last year Plugd moved into Triskel Arts Centre in Cork and reopened for business. The partnership between the arts centre and music store makes such perfect sense that it’s surprising other arts venues with vacant space and shops seeking to sell music haven’t followed suit.
Internationally, store closures are also common but there has been a move towards pop-up shops. Former retailers, such as hip-hop specialist Fat Beats in New York, and even rock stars – Jack White’s Third Man Rolling Record Store is a mobile record shop in a yellow truck – have opened temporary trading posts to sell music.
Such innovations, though, are the exception rather than the rule. Despite the best intentions of record labels, which know only too well how vital retail outlets are for their business in terms of exposure on the high street, the record shop as we have known it for the past few decades is on its last lap.
Some will survive the cull. Rough Trade in London and Other Music in New York, for example, will benefit from being located in big cities, not to mention from their long-standing reputations for quality, a continuing (if reduced) demand for physical product and loyalty from the indie-music industry, which will do everything it can to ensure the shops remain in business.
In other cities the outlook is bleak. You might think a capital city like Dublin, with a vibrant live-music scene (well, a city with lots of gigs, anyway: attendances for many of the lower-profile shows have become patchy of late), should be able to support a handful of indie shops, at least.
Yet as the owners of Road, City Discs, Comet and others have found out in the past year, the market just isn’t there any more. Music fans still love music, but they are no longer willing to go into a conventional record store and pay for that music on CD or vinyl.
More information on Record Store Day and its Irish participants at recordstoreday.co.uk
10 of the best Independent record stores around the world
1 Rough Trade East
London, roughtrade.com
The shop of every geeky music fans dreams. Superbly well stocked, knowledgeable (and friendly) staff, in-store performance space, cafe, free Wi-Fi . . . You could probably also take a nap if you felt inclined.
2 Amoeba
San Francisco, amoeba.com
It’s billed as the world’s largest independent record store, and few who have visited its vast barn-like premises in San Francisco’s Haight Ashbury will disagree.
3 Dusty Groove
Chicago, dustygroove.com
If you’re looking for soul, funk, jazz or RB, this one is for you. It’s a store where you could easily spend a few hundred dollars within minutes on rare releases. Also operates an excellent online store.
4 Crocodisc
Paris, crocodisc.com
Long-standing, overstocked Left Bank fixture. This is the go-to store in the city for blues, African and world releases.
5 Soundscapes
Toronto, soundscapesmusic.com
One of the scariest shops on the planet: you go in with a long list of albums you’ve been trying to find for ages and come out with every single item on that list. Brilliant staff who know their wide and diverse stock really well.
6 CD Drome
Barcelona and Madrid, cddrome.com
Irish music fans who are heading to the Catalan city for the Primavera or Sonar festivals should make tracks to CD Drome to stock up on new indie and alternative releases. Small but superbly stocked.
7 The Magic Buzz
Groningen, magicbuzz.nl
There are about half a dozen brilliant record shops within a few streets of each other in this Dutch city. The pick of the bunch is this impeccable vinyl specialist on Steentilstraat, which has a stonking selection of garage rock, blues, soul, psychedelia and rock’n’roll.
8 Honest Jon’s
London, honestjons.com
Another shop with a brilliant in-house label (Damon Albarn is involved in this one), Honest Jon’s is a fantastic store to visit if you’re after reggae, jazz, soul and assorted African grooves.
9 Other Music
New York, othermusic.com
Once upon a time you had an array of bustling stores in Manhattan, but the vast majority (including big guns like Tower and Virgin) are now real-estate footnotes. Other Music, however, remains a must-visit spot for anyone seeking new indie, weird-beard experimental, new classical or old-school soul and funk.
10 Plugd
Cork, myspace.com/plugdrecords
The return of Plugd to the streets of Cork was one of the few good-news stories in Irish music retail in 2010. As the shop prepares to move into the refurbished Triskel Arts Centre on Record Store Day (it was located until recently in Triskel’s temporary home at the ESB Substation), it’s proof that there’s still some semblance of demand for a boutique outlet with music at its core.
