Top Reasons… why record stores ROCK. (or do they?)

I have been a fan of records since I was a child. The feel of vinyl in my hand, the delicate way you slowly lower the needle to the vinyl and that soothing ssszt sszt ssszt sound before the music starts. When the weather turns 60 here in Boston and I open my windows for the first time in spring time, I pull down the record player and pull out my John Mellencamp albums. Yes, John Mellencamp is sunny days and easier days to me, romance and new beginnings. This ritual is one I cherish each year.

I have always had a love-hate relationship with downloadable music. I like perusing the bins, checking out the box sets, feeling the awesome cases on some of the imports,  and I love the social aspect. Who doesn’t remember the scenes in High Fidelity or Pretty in Pink? Those moments cease to exist when you are buying music from iTunes on your couch. I feel somehow distanced from the process and less excited by the energy, the random song over head, the guy with the post grunge look and the girl who looks like Ally Sheedy in Breakfast Club who is secretly hiding the Boys2Men album that reminds her of her pre-adolescence. I live for these moments.

I decided to give downloadable music a chance. I did the list, you know the one. All the pros and the cons.

iTunes:

Pro: Always there when I need them, dependable, attractive and easy to get what I want.
Con: Too nice and easy, lacking the mystery and intrigue of a record store, no sales!

Record Store:

Pros: People watching, thrill of the chase, random discoveries, liner art and bargain bins!
Cons: I’ve got the flu and really want to hear a certain song that I don’t have, I end up just uploading them to my computer anyway, and all that damn packaging.

Wow, the last con got me. The packaging. CD’s are a wolf in lambs clothing. I was curious what the actual comparison was. I did some research and found a great study by some gentleman from Carnegie Mellon University, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Stanford University. In the study they analyzed 6 different scenarios, 3 involving CD’s and 3 involving downloadable music. For the purposes of my query I stuck with the options of  purchasing a CD at a traditional retail establishment vs album downloaded from an online site and used digitally.

The study is very in-depth and goes into a lot of statistics that left me feeling like Penny vs Sheldon on Big Bang Theory, however, the basic summary is this…  “purchasing music digitally reduces the energy and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions associated with delivering music to customers by between 40 and 80% from the best-case physical CD delivery, depending on whether a customer then burns the files to CD or not. This reduction is due to the elimination of CDs, CD packaging, and the physical delivery of CDs to the household. Based on these assumptions, online delivery is clearly superior from an energy & CO2 perspective when compared to traditional CD distribution.”

So, while this may not be the best answer for all of us, including the small record store owner, it is a preferred scenario to purchasing an entire album for just one or two songs, or if you are just going to burn it and put the CD on a shelf, only to be touched next by your grand kids who marvel at the shiny huge disc, like we did with 8 Tracks. If however, you are going to love the CD and take it everywhere you go, shop small, shop local. Support your community record store.

Tags: Ally Sheedy, Big Bang Theory, Boys2Men, Carnegie Mellon University, compact discs, downloadable music, High Fidelity, iTunes, John Mellencamp, lawrence Berkely National Laboratory, Penny, Pretty in Pink, records, Sheldon, Stanford University, vinyl