3.5 Ways to Save Record Stores for the Bubble Generation

This weekend, I ran into Tower Records to buy a gift CD.  The store was fairly busy, and I was immediately struck by something odd: Not a person in the store, not one customer nor a single employee, was under the age of 40.  Not long ago, the aisles would have been teeming with intense teen shoppers, the counter staffed by heavily inked and pierced hipsters, the walls plastered with posters for new garage bands playing in town.  No longer.  Apparently, only gray hairs shop at record stores these days.  And, if they are no longer at the vanguard of popular music, you can be sure record stores will soon be a relic of history. But this doesn't need to happen.  And it shouldn't.

For the most part, today's young connected consumer doesn't go to places like Tower Records to find and buy new music anymore.  They download most of their music library from online sources and peer-to-peer platforms.  This, of course, is having a disruptive impact up and down the established music industry ecosystem.  The old nexus of artist, radio stations, concert promoters and record stores is busted flat.  The Bubble Generation consumer doesn't listen to commercial radio, doesn't buy out concerts anymore (that's a subject for a future blog), doesn't appreciate pre-packaged song collections, and won't buy a song without hearing it first. 

Sure, record stores have been under duress for some time from the big booksellers and mega stores.  And, fundamentally, the arrival of shrink wrapped CDs meant that shopping for music became less interesting: cool album art and liner notes are no longer part of the record-buying gestalt.  But clearly, the Internet is the biggest threat to dwindling days of the record store.  Downloaded digital music is cheap, easy and immediate.   

I have to admit that I am part of the problem too.  I buy most of my music these days through iTunes,  The few CDs I've acquired lately have come from Starbucks.  I check on the show dates of the bands I like through Pollstar, and like everyone else, get artist updates through MySpace.

But we still need record stores.

I consider record stores to be one of those "third places" where people can share a common experience: music.  Popular music provides the sound track of our lives, the anthems for our times the touchstones that unite a generation.  Half the fun of the radio is the chance to listen to, discover and experience music with others.  Like radio, record stores allow us to engage music outside of our own heads.

How do we get the ear buds out and keep record stores alive?  They must change with the times.  Here are a few ways they can make the transition:

1.  Create an experience, not just a point of purchase.  Digitize some of the media or move it to back storage, but make room: the record store should be a music space.  Couches and video screens, instruments, and goofy karaoke would be more fun and make the record store a destination for engagement again.

2. Use technology liberally.  Online, consumers listen to snippets before they ever buy a song.  While some music stores have listening stations to scan and hear some of their offerings, they are always limited. The easy answer is to digitize all inventory so that a consumer can sample any song any time. 

2. a  Use technology culture liberally. Also, the consumer shoud be allowed to download music on the spot--song by song.  Docking stations should be available throughout the premises so that consumers can plug-in, buy, download and enjoy any song they want--whether it is physically in stock or not.  Pretty silly idea to work the racks today only to find your choice sold out.  That doesn't happen online and it can't happen in-store either.

3. Make record stores "dangerous" again.  Sorry, but the geezer patrol has got to go if you want record stores to be hip again.  More hands-on events, more artist appearances, more chances for the Bubble Generation to gather the tribes, talk, text and send in their own code.   

Yes, technology has its consequences, but we must ultimately be in control.  We shouldn't let the new completely wipe out the best of the present and we should never allow technology to isolate us from each other.  That would be an advance in the wrong direction.

Technorati Profile

Comments

[Dave]

Loved the "Saving Record Stores" article - I hope to God that it happens. I despise the notion of purchasing digitized music, and love going out to a store and going through those CD racks - it's an experience... which rewards you with an actual tangible item. I'll always wait for the legit release of an album, and I must listen to the CD first (though admittedly, I will later put it on my iPod - but the ipod is not a replacement, but rather a convenience.)

[Dave]

Loved the "Saving Record Stores" article - I hope to God that it happens. I despise the notion of purchasing digitized music, and love going out to a store and going through those CD racks - it's an experience... which rewards you with an actual tangible item. I'll always wait for the legit release of an album, and I must listen to the CD first (though admittedly, I will later put it on my iPod - but the ipod is not a replacement, but rather a convenience.)