The drumbeat is loud and familiar: a rat-a-tat of bad news and even worse predictions for the music industry.
“Anyone seen my $4.2 billion?” culture hound Chuck Klosterman asked in Esquire last week, attempting to account for the drop in total revenue from music sales— including downloads—between 1999 and 2006.
Traditional brick-and-mortar record stores, once the main retail outlet for new and used music, are suffering along with everyone else. Boulder has lost at least a half dozen record stores in recent years, including Cheapo Discs, All the Rage, Rocky Mountain Records and Tapes and others.
“There are plenty of industries feeling the pinch of the digital age,” said Judy Negley, vice president of Colorado Springs-based Independent Records. But record stores seem to embody the problem.
“No one can deny that fewer records are being sold, but what shows up on the front page every time? ‘Record stores are going away.’ ”
Independent stores are particularly susceptible, competing with big-box retailers and download sites at the same time, struggling to pay the rent in an industry with high overhead.
So what’s an indie store to do?
Put on a brave face and throw a party, of course.
Record Store Day, which takes place at independent stores around the globe on Saturday, is the indies’ response to the grim march of industry news, an attempt to assert their relevance and uniqueness in an increasingly digital, impersonal and infinitely customizable consumer world.
Events at participating stores include live music and DJ sets, free swag bags and other promotions aimed at drawing new customers and rewarding regular ones.
Chris Brown of Bull Moose Records in Portland, Maine, pitched the idea last year at a conference in Baltimore, modeling it after the similar, highly successful Free Comic Book Day.
“Nielsen SoundScan lumps us in with Best Buy, so we’re treated as the same business model,” said Michael Kurtiz of the Music Monitor Network, which represents dozens of indie stores with a combined annual revenue of $100 million. “One of the things we’re hoping to come out of Record Store Day is that labels and distribution companies realize we’re a completely different kind of business.”
What started out as a day-long excuse for the indies to band together in the name of promotional solidarity has become a minor cultural phenomenon, attracting dozens of celebrity endorsements (Paul McCartney, Bruce Springsteen, Chuck Berry, Norah Jones, Damon Albarn) that attest to the importance of the neighborhood record store — and hundreds more record stores around the world than originally envisioned.
“It’s exploded because all these people are sharing the same experiences,” Kurtz said, noting that stores in the U.K., Ireland, Norway and Australia have climbed on board.
The organizers originally drew up a “master plan” of 220 stores, which quickly grew to more than 400. At least half a dozen in Colorado are participating, including the 30-year-old Independent Records chain, Twist & Shout, Angelo’s, Pueblo Records & Tapes, Albums on the Hill and others.
Independent’s seven stores bring in roughly $10 million annually and support 120 employees, but part-owner Negley said that high overhead eats away at profits.
“It’s amazing,” she said. “A lot of times you’re selling things under cost, or just barely over it. It’s always been expensive to us, and we’re certainly not rich as owners.”
Indie record stores also struggle against high-volume retailers like Wal-Mart and Best Buy, which thrive on selling millions of copies of the same album instead of maintaining a deep, diverse catalog the way most indies do.
“The whole middle has dropped out,” said Paul Epstein, owner of Twist & Shout Records. “The Tower Records and Sam Goodys and traditional mall stores have disappeared in the last few years. Now you have the gigantic mass merchandisers moving tonnage and the tastemaker indies controlling the rest. In between there’s Internet sales.”
iTunes, Wal-Mart and Best Buy have become the top three retailers of music in the U.S., respectively, controlling a combined 47 percent of all sales. But there’s innate value in indie record stores, even if one can get the same merchandise elsewhere more quickly and at a potentially lower cost.
“Wal-Mart and companies like that have no connection to local economies or individual needs,” said Epstein, whose store turns 20 this weekend. “They’re trading the soul of the community for convenience and savings.”
Epstein admitted that he would have a hard time telling the average Hannah Montana fan why she should come to Twist & Shout over Wal- Mart, but that being all things to all people has never been an indie store goal.
“There are kids that have never been in a record store, and that’s an incredible failing with the industry at large,” said Independent’s Negley. “They just forgot about a couple generations of kids and were marketing to Baby Boomers.”
Ever-mindful of the digital revolution, Record Store Day aims to remind us why the hunt for new music — and not just the bloodless kill — is part of the fun.
“It’s more than what you’re selling,” Negley said. “We’re mass merchandising an art form here, so there’s a responsibility to maintain your cultural relevance to the community you’re in.”
John Wenzel: 303-954-1642 or jwenzel@denverpost.com
This article has been corrected in this online archive. Originally, due to a reporting error, it listed an incorrect location for Bull Moose Records. The store is in Portland, Maine.
