"We can order it for you..." aka... the day the music (shop) died...

[the mojo hobo]

It works the other way too. I shop for tires at tirerack.com; paying attention to the reviews I chose the tires I wanted and went to my local tire store and bought them. They were even about the same price delivered and installed.

[Hörnisse]

Robert... did you ever pick up that Solid Senders CD...? seen it a couple of times on greedbay from a US seller...

I haven't yet.  I may have to look for it in the bay.

[eb2]

Dave is right - the Twin Cities area is blessed with plenty of record/tape/CD shops.  In fact one of them took out a couple of rows of CD and replaced them with the hot seller - vinyl. Or vinyls if you're a kid.  But there are still plenty of decent stand-alone music shops in every place, and lps are moving more than CDs for the crowd that likes their music physically holdable.  Nothing like Sam The Record Man, Tower, Strawberries, etc.  But still there.  Go browse-I do!

[Psycho Bass Guy]

I've been casually looking for some Albert Collins albums for a few years. NOBODY, not the used CD stores, not Amazon, not eBay, had what I was looking for. The first time I go to Raven Records', a local mainstay for many years that recently expanded, new shop, they have TWO albums I don't for $5. That was cool.

[nofi]

its hard to find albert collins records without a horn section. that's been my dilemma.

[gweimer]

This just in...Rush to the rescue!

http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/business/Retail_and_leisure/article1197662.ece

[Pilgrim]

"Universal Music, Warner Music and Sony are set to cut the price of CDs and DVDs, and give the retailer generous credit terms."

About time.  CDs are unnecessarily expensive.  This may only operate on the wholesale side, leaving HMV more room to generate funding, and I'm OK with that too.

[Dave W]

"Universal Music, Warner Music and Sony are set to cut the price of CDs and DVDs, and give the retailer generous credit terms."

About time.  CDs are unnecessarily expensive.  This may only operate on the wholesale side, leaving HMV more room to generate funding, and I'm OK with that too.

Proof that the CDs were way overpriced to begin with.

OTOH I don't think anything will stop the overall slide in CD sales.

[Denis]

I hate CDs. The ONLY thing truly good about them is that you can put many of them in a small space.

Since I do a radio show, it happens at least once a show that one of the three cd players refuses to play a certain cd. My cd player at home won't play certain cds. The other day at the station I opened up a cd case and the cover detached, the book fell out, the cd rolled across the floor and the back of the case fell the other direction. What WAS an easy play turned into a 4-piece clusterf*ck.

I walked out of my house the other day and the four cds I was carrying slipped out of my hand onto the porch floor. Busted all of them.

Albums never have any of these problems. Plus, any record player will play any record (unless the record is a speed the record player can't handle). And really, if you take care of your records, they sound better than cds.

Even that a CD allows you to listen to the entire recording all the way through doesn't quite override the disadvantages.

[gweimer]

Even a curmudgeon like me can see that it's easier to download songs to an MP3 player or Ipod and then simply feed the car stereo from there.  There's nothing worse than a front seat full of CDs and cases.  At one point, my son must have had a couple hundred of them in his car.  Of course, last I knew, he was becoming a vinyl snob.

[jumbodbassman]

used to love bin shopping.  As a kid we had a discount store EJ Korvettes ( 8 Jewish Korean Vettes)  that sold top 100 albums for 2.99.  remember taking the NYC bus there on saturdays and buying a album about every month such as Aqualung,  paranoid,  LZ II etc.   As i got older there were many great record shops in manhattan  and many had "cutouts"  for 1.99   and some had promotional   copies where i bought many new wave bands of tye early 80's.    Generation  after us (really more like 2+ )   have never experienced the store experience  and they are the target consumer right now.  The internet generations have and will continue to doom most retailers.   Think about it.  most of us buy basses off feebay or each other or on line stores without ever playing it befire.  If you told me i would have done that 30 years ago i would laugh at you....

[FrankieTbird]

I also shopped for records at Korvettes when I was a young kid, Woolworth's too.  Then when our local Korvettes went under, it was replaced by Caldor's, they had a good bargain bin also.  Bought my first few records at the Union Flea Market in Union, NJ.  The had a couple really good booths there with new and used vinyl.

[gweimer]

Yeah, Korvette's was the place for cheap records.  I got my first copy of Ziggy Stardust there for $2.99.  My best score was a sampler, The New Age of Atlantic, that was a mere $0.99.  On vinyl, it had the very first released version of both "Hey, Hey, What Can I Do" from Led Zeppelin, and also "America" by Yes.  It was years before either showed up on a release from the actual artists.
Bin shopping was great.  A lot of my record collection was gotten simply because of the album cover.  I would never have heard Johnny Winter if I hadn't been interested in the album I picked up a SS Kresge one day.  Osibisa was the same way.  Roger Dean certainly helped sell a lot of vinyl back then.  So did Hipgnosis.

I was one of those college kids who bought an album a week, or more.

[Pilgrim]

I hate CDs. The ONLY thing truly good about them is that you can put many of them in a small space.

Since I do a radio show, it happens at least once a show that one of the three cd players refuses to play a certain cd. My cd player at home won't play certain cds. The other day at the station I opened up a cd case and the cover detached, the book fell out, the cd rolled across the floor and the back of the case fell the other direction. What WAS an easy play turned into a 4-piece clusterf*ck.

I walked out of my house the other day and the four cds I was carrying slipped out of my hand onto the porch floor. Busted all of them.

Albums never have any of these problems. Plus, any record player will play any record (unless the record is a speed the record player can't handle). And really, if you take care of your records, they sound better than cds.

Even that a CD allows you to listen to the entire recording all the way through doesn't quite override the disadvantages.

Denis - my viewpoint is based on having grown up with 45s and LPs.

CDs are smaller, more robust, harder to damage, easier to cue up (and no damage from a stylus) and if one falls on the floor, you pick it up.  If an LP or 45 falls on the floor it can pick up dust or grit that damages it.  I've never had a factory CD generally fail to play - although I think I might have one or two with one bad cut on them.

Unlike computer files - which can easily get deleted or misplaced, and which often are only available in compressed formats - a CD can be used to burn as many copies in as many formats as needed.  The AVI format on CDs is high quality and allows all kinds of alternative format copies to be created.

All in all, although I can see why CDs are declining in popularity, I'd much rather have one than a downloaded compressed file with fidelity inferior to the CD.  

And I think one reason CDs are declining is that they're overpriced.  A CD of anything more than a few years old should be about $5 at the most.

[Highlander]

... Albums never have any of these problems...

Denis...! shame on you for telling such a barefaced lie...

Lets not mention snap, crackle and pop, nor the hop, skip and a jump, let alone the accidental scratch or dropping one edge on or wowowowow or...

I have already embraced the future of music...