Topic E, Part 3: For clarity's sake

I know I've confused people in the real world with this, and now I've carried it over to the blogosphere, but to be clear, when I speak of record shopping, I mean shopping for music, period. I still call it record shopping when I only buy CDs, but I do also purchase vinyl from time to time (though not so much since the birth of my daughter last summer, as the turntable's been in storage, and that shows no sign of changing now that she's ultra-mobile). But - and I think Miss Imperial's with me on this - when I worked in music retail, I called it a record store, and when I have money to burn, I go record shopping. After all, CDs are still recordings, right? And when I made reference to going digital, I suppose I meant mp3s, iPods, elbo.ws, eMusic, etc - music collected and/or consumed through a computer.

Sorry for any confusion.

Topic E, Part Two: There will always be a bit of my heart devoted to it.

I think I'll always have a use for it. I just hope there'll always be record stores to go to.

-- /a, "The Lost Art"

Agreed. There is still something very satisfying about crawling through record stores. It has nothing to do with a highly consumerist, stereotypically feminine, love of shopping -- that is the force that propels me into the nearest H&M whenever I am within two miles of one. Maybe this love of hanging out in and bringing home goods from music shops is a characteristic of being old, of having spent more than half my life (thus far) without the luxury of importing songs right into my home from the magical Internet universe. (The i-verse, ha-HA!)

It's not like I don't download songs and load them onto an MP3 player with a thousand other tracks. Most of my enjoyment of music is accomplished without a trip downtown and without the help of a (more often than not) haughty record store clerk. If I like the music enough, though, chances are I will end up holding the CD from whence it comes in my hands, eventually placing it in my beloved collection with a thousand other albums.

[Aside: "the CD"! I guess I really am all-digital now; I remember when I used to buy vinyl and vinyl alone, though that was when I was very young and under the impression that a vinyl record was better than a cassette tape because the cover art was bigger. I soon came to appreciate the warmth of a good vinyl record, but was ultimately seduced by the relative clarity and longevity of the compact disc...and then came the clear, brilliant, ageless MP3. Sigh. Really, though, the clincher is the lightweight portability of the MP3 and its players, which is what opened me up to cassette tapes in my tweenage (and teenage) years. I also switched to tapes because they regularly contained bonus tracks that wouldn't fit onto 12-inches.]

Yet it's more than just having the physical product at home, and even more than supporting the artists with whatever portion of the sale they receive. There's something about being in a record store, in person, that makes me feel...happy. I can't explain it any better than that, for which I apologize, but I hope you know what I mean. Again, it might be my age, it might be my overwhelming love of music; maybe it's some High Fidelity-esque fantasy; or maybe it really is consumerism, after all, and I should just admit it. Whatever the reason, it ensures that for every click towards The Hype Machine, there will be at least a half-step towards the racks.

Topic E, Part 1: The Lost Art

I like the idea that almost anything I might want to hear is at the tips of my fingers. I like that I can carry a thousand songs in my pocket. I like finding new music while at the office. But I still love the act of record shopping. I went last week, moving my way up Bank Street, from Planet of Sound, to Birdman, to Sounds Unlikely (housed in the old 5 Arlington building, which was weird - much smaller than I remember). It was like revisiting a lost friend. Flipping through the CDs, talking to the clerks. I think I'll always have a use for it. I just hope there'll always be record stores to go to.

(What'd I find? A Studio 1 compilation, some Ken Vandermark, an out-of-print Matthew Shipp Quartet album, and Charles Mingus' Complete Town Hall Concert.)

You guys? Are you all-digital now? Or is there room for dusty shelves, crate digging, and sale bins?