I sold a shitload terrible CD's in the nineties. As a music retailer at stores such as Music World, A + B Sound and Musiplex, I could move thousands of units of garbage every day: Stone Temple Pilots, Shania Twain, the Empire Records soundtrack, Enigma, Matchbox 20, 1000% Dance compilations - people delighted in laying down cash because a friend had recommended the album or the the radio had played the single or they just needed some retail therapy. Then people discovered they could get music for free and the soggy bottom fell out of the cardboard CD-50 box. Now, at my current place of work, I'm buying those EXACT same albums, which retailed at ~$15.99, back for a pittance.
Of course, the odd fact is that it goes back out the door again albeit at a rock-bottom price. Over the course of a few years we've sold 250 copies of Alanis Morrisette's Jagged Little Pill. You need to stop and re-consider the exact implication of that number. 250 men, children and women (primarily the latter) have walked thorough our doors to dump that angst-addled album and THEN 250 more people all waltzed in and scooped it back up again.
Sometimes music retail seems like a zombie, feeding on the flesh the past.
On our playlist today, 1000 Mona Lisa's version of "You Oughta Know", the Ergs version of "Hey Jealousy", J Church's version of "Creep" and Ryan Adams' version of "Wonderwall"
No comments:
Post a Comment