Who gives a fuck about record shops?

jesus christ...

1. "WHO GIVES A FUCK ABOUT RECORD SHOPS?"

It's so cool to be nihilistic isn't it, those attention grabbing headlines you cunjure up must give you a hard on? This article is simply disturbing from the core. How old are you if you don't mind me asking? It might explain your naivety and complete lack of knowledge about how music actually gets to your ears in the first place. Are you 12?

2. "540 stores have closed for business in the past four years, Zavvi is bust, 95% of music downloads are illegal"

Did you read this in The Sun newspaper over the festive break? I did. I'm serious.

3. "So yes, record stores are on their way out."

Vinyl sales are actually rising steadily and if you had done any research other than to read The Sun newspaper you would realise this and if you were a journo worth their salt (there aren't many, you're not not on your own) then you would also be very aware that with the huge increase in digital "sales" then the obvious and "cool" thing to do would be to go and buy vinyl and "get into it maaan"... which, guess what?! Is what is going on at the moment!

4. But (whisper it) does it really matter?

Whisper it? Why? Because you know that essentially what you're writing is going to upset loads of music lovers and you can feel cool and important cause people like me spend time trying to explain to people like you how the music industry works.

5. "The simple truth is that if an album is £8.99 online (or indeed, free INSERT "IF YOU ARE A THEIVING CUNT) and more expensive (as they tend to be) in the ‘credible’ record stores, people will take their custom to the cheapest vendor."

True, but 'credible record stores' hold a whole lot of stock that Spotify will never get's its grubby mits on. I'm really not joking now, how old are you? Have you ever been to a record store? Do you know how Spotify etc... works...?

6. "You may get more satisfaction knowing you’ve helped out the independent trader but when you’re unemployed and scratching money together to pay the rent an ethical copy of It’s Blitz! is going to be little more than a kick in the teeth."

Helping the trader??!?!?!?! What planet are you living on? okay, i'll calm down. This is how it goes:

Band makes the record
spends lots of money and time doing so
gives it to record label
record label makes it (digital, cd or vinyl)
distributer sells it to the shops
shops sell it to you

Would you like to rethink who you are "helping" now?

7. "This wealth of information and access to literally every genre of music can only be a good thing for musicians with an open mind and a willingness to experiment."

Grow up. Jumping from Gene Loves Jezebel to The Cult on Spotify or MySpace and "listening" to the top 5 tracks does not make you worthy of even thinking about writing the above article. Don't get me wrong I use both, and i'm not being snobby, i simply know that having a record collection (CD, Vinyl, Digital) and spending time listening and learning and enjoying (above all) is more, in depth knowledge and far more rewarding that listening to mp3s through your macbook speakers speeding through Spotify on your way out the door so you can impress your mates at the pub. The music you steal buy or borrow was made by musicians, artists, music makers, even fucking Kasabian spend years of their lives dedicated to making music at studios with amazing microphones, acoustics, analogue-digital converters, hand made mixing desks and not even to mention the producers skill and knowledge. Whether it be from Dizzee Rascals 1st album or Pink Floyds most convoluted, they we're all expensive and time consuming pieces of art.

8. "Think about it, if everyone in a city depends on their music being available from one or two independent record stores then the owners of those shops are able to subject a generation to their geeky tastes."

line by fucking line... does anyone proof read this shit over at Platform? Think about it, yeah go on... think about it, open your tiny minds fellow people, follow me... Mate, you are a gobshite. Do you really think (for example when it was only 2 people selling records in a City) that the reason The Beatles became world conquering music changing artists was because 2 scallies in Liverpool were selling some vinyl to teenagers? It wasn't down to extensive rehearsing in Hamburg, playing 6 hours a night EVERY night, dressing well, sounding great, penning unheard lyrics and melodies etc etc...? No... okay... i'll leave that one with you as well.

9 "The Internet restores power to the fan."

Spotify gives almost 0.01 pence to the record label per song every time it's played in full. This is a fact, I read it in a magazine at the weekend. Brilliant, that means Faris and co. can go and buy a penny chew from the corner shop, oh hang on, no the record company and marketing and distribution take 78%... "oh well, we'll have to wait until it's played another 80 times or so and we can maybe buy a 10p mix lads, Coffin Joe get the speed out, we're starving again... thanks Spotify, you're so swell"

10. It gives them a platform to dictate their own musical upbringing. Who says Fugazi doesn’t sit next to Alphabeat? If you want to mix dubstep with psychadelia in a playlist then do it.

buy it and put it where you fucking like... how old are you again? 9?

11. "I don’t want to see people passionate about music unable to make a living from it (as a freelance journalist, I feel their pain) but we must step away from seeing the internet as a big scary monster"

This is way off the mark.

The point that the music consumer in 2010 seems to be missing (you are definitely included in this) is that you simply do not understand what goes into making a record and getting it to your ears. So you mistreat it and essentially, care less and less for it as time and generations pass by. It's not your fault that you are being fed this bullshit by companies such as Apple (it is your fault however, that you eat it and regurgitate it in such a crass and disturbing fashion)... smaller headphones, smaller, more compressed mp3s, smaller speakers (BOSE for example), all contribute to the consumption of music being listened to on terrible speakers, terrible headphones and people like you know no better. So studios that are set up to make beautiful recording are going bust all over the place, musicians haven't got a pot to piss and knowhere to record in and you, the consumer will get increasingly poorer and poorer quality music. Not just technically either. With more people being forced to pay for recordings themselves and releasing it themselves (another bullshit story we are sold that this is a cool and liberal thing) music quality is getting worse, there is no middle man anymore to say: "this is good, this shit, this will last a week, this will be number 1 and sell 10'000 copies".

this is pointless isn't it

i'm 26 by the way

an internet café sells food, and has seats.

A record shop sells plastic disks and nothing else.

All record shops should therefore turn into internet cafés.

Some people like to step out of their front door and have a root around in record shops.

You stay in doors young man, and sever any form of direct communication or contact that you might have with human beings - that's much cooler isn't it.

It actually makes me laugh how naive this article is. You're actually saying that having a few MP3's on your hard drive constitutes a music collection?

OK, I suppose that's fair enough in a really sad way.. but probably over half the music ever recorded isn't available as a download - and if you proclaim to be interested in music or new sounds it's impossible to write vinyl off. Record shops will never disappear, because despite your extremely short-sighted view on the trade there IS a market in it. There are collectors and curators all over the world compiling some of the MP3's that reside in your 'collection', and reall re-discoveries are taking place.. something I suppose you'll never be privvy to. Perhaps if you actually had any knowledge at all, you might be able to spell 'psychedelic' correctly.

To be Frank, I think it's a blessing that people like you don't stink up the places that I love. Perhaps there is a God.

Apparantly people who Apparantly people who illegally download music are 9 times more likely to buy it. Go figure.

Have some respect for the people whose music you love! You really are missing the point. The bigger issue (than whether or not people buy music from independent record shops) is the fact that if everyone keeps downloading music illegally, the people making the music don't get paid, and if they don't get paid, they can't make a living out of making music, and if they can't make a living, they'll stop making music. What are you going to listen to then?

damn it i know it's happening, but i want it to stop. fuck the cd, i don't know anyone who uses them as anything but digital file baskets to carry music from the store to their pc, but we NEED vinyl. forget any of that 'it sounds better' bullshit. anyone who cares about sound quality rips at 320 or dloads flac or wav, all of which are indistinguishable from prime vinyl, not to mention the hisss POP crackle of second hand. i just know that when i buy an LP i feel like im 12 again listening to my first flogging molly album (shutup).

This is one view I actually was in this same conversation with an actual record store owner and this is what he concluded.

The CD and pretty much vinyl as we know are going to become niche markets highly dependent on online stores ala amazon and Barnes and Nobel for distribution with the major form of music distribution being digital. I.e. if a person actually wants a CD they can get it via this more central form of distribution since Amazon doesn't have to pay to have a store and the marginal costs are so much lower, it makes the products cheaper, and the diversity of these online stores allows for the physical side to lack while the digital can subsidize it. But the new main form of music distribution will be via digital formats to fulfill instant gratification and maximize sales potential.

However this still alienates a large percentage of the music buying population. CD sales and markets for niche genres are still flourishing and these genres have vested interests in Music Stores. Good examples are Jazz, Gospel and Classical Music. Although you might baff at them this is a vibrant part of the music industry that survives on an older audience who would rather buy a cd then figure out how to download a song. So yes as these people start to phase outou will still CD's in production. Especially since they are so cheap to manufacture.

So your rant is in good merit and I support you getting your music how ever you feel is appropriate but just remember that dling a song on a blog is very different then purchasing it legally online. The difference is probably equatable to if this entry didn't have adds on the side and you didn't get paid for advert impressions yet I still read it and though it was partially insightful.

People used to be able to People used to be able to afford it and record prices, certainly 12" prices, haven't changed in the ten years i've been buying them. Therefore they've got cheaper if you factor in wage inflation.

Don't start using "I can't afford it" as an excuse. People with the same money always used to afford it because they had to before the internet got fast enough and filesharing got widespread. Much better to face up to the fact that you value money in your pocket more than you value giving it to people in return for work you respect and love.

brilliant i really feel what your saying in this piece. I mean I'm only 15 y.o and if it wasn't for downloading music I wouldn't have been half as knowledgeable in music as I am . Downloading music lets you be free to try different types of music without the fear of "oh i only have a teener so ill have to buy one album and thats it" you can get all the music you want for free! from my view this is simply brilliant . It means my generation are going to be much more open minded about music because we can try everything . dont fear music downloads because it is not the end of music by a long shot. when a change like this comes about then soon enough something else will come along to equal it out . its how the world works.

i'm on downloading like eczema's on your body but there's something really satisfying about having a hard copy album to listen to all in one go whilst thumbing through the album art.

i wouldnt want to see the back of real physical rec'rds! plus the very principle of being a disc jockey would become a sham.

have i got the wrong end of the literary stick but are you suggesting the death of CD?

I'm not so concerned about independent record stores As you say, I can't afford most of the stuff they sell in there anyway.




But I would like to save the few second hand record stores left.


The prices in there make the internet look like a fucking joke.


8.99 for 12 digital files? You're having a laugh.