Ever go into a store and suddenly realize that you are no longer someone who should be a patron of that store? Or how about walking into one of the big box stores and going through their CD section and only spying a handful of artists you’re familiar with. What’s more, the ones you are familiar with haven’t been recording in the “mainstream” for at least 5 years or so.
Well, that’s how I felt today walking through my local box store. It’s also how I felt a few weeks ago upon entering the Levi’s outlet to buy some new jeans. What do jeans have to do with CDs? Everything, when you feel as though you’re too old to be purchasing either. The jeans I wanted were the ones I was wearing. When I asked the clerk (who was probably younger than my jeans) where this style was, he told me they no longer made them. He directed me to the baggy jeans hanging off your hips section, where I found absolutely nothing I would consider wearing.
It’s probably good that I didn’t consider updating my “style” to the Church Of What’s Happening Now, because I may not have been be able to travel to Atlanta in the future, as they appear to be considering a ban on such pants. And if you simply Google the phrase “baggy jeans outlawed”, check out what you come up with. It appears Atlanta isn’t alone, and I might not have been able to travel to a number of cities. I guess now that’s smoking is coming under control, the powers that be are turning toward an equally menacing problem confronting us today: miscreants in baggy pants.
I wish they’d take aim at what I believe to be a far bigger problem facing us today: crap in the CD section. I mean, who are these people? (Note that I hesitate to call them “artists” more than once in the same post). Where did they all come from? Who found them? Are those that did still working at the record label that signed them? Ah, questions. Questions that will never be answered. But damn well should be.
The music industry complains of sagging sales, yet does absolutely nothing to improve the quality of its product. Wait – I shouldn’t actually say that. The packaging and artwork looked really beautiful. Ever wonder why they don’t let you check out a new record in the store before you buy it anymore? I do. Whatever happened to the record geeks, those folks working in the stores who seemed to know the most minute detail of just about any artist you could ask them about? I miss those people! I learned so much about what to buy (and what to shy away from) talking to them. We need people like that to help the industry, but the industry doesn’t think so. They have radio to help them. Radio and music television. But not MTV – oh no! MTV fancies itself an actual television network now, so they don’t really play music all that much anymore. Of course, that’s probably a good thing, as we were all afraid of MTV when it previewed, and thought it would help bring about the death of music as we knew it. It took a little while, but it looks like we were right.
I guess the bottom line is this: I am no longer being marketed to. On the one hand, that’s a good thing. I hated being the focus of “marketing”. On the other, it’s a glaring example of what’s wrong with the music industry. There’s nothing wrong promoting artists that only the youth of today can relate to. It’s been that way since Benny Goodman, and it will stay that way. But when the industry alienates an entire segment of the population by dispensing with artists as they mature, we all lose. Even the kids. Hey, they’re going to be my age a lot sooner than they’d like to believe (I know first hand!). When the demographic with the most buying power is overlooked by the music industry, it makes no sense. These days, it seems as though the only place to find music from the artists we grew up with is on the Internet. Good for the artist in one sense, because it can eliminate the middleman. Bad for the artist in others, because it requires mastering a technology that is moving at light speed, or paying someone to master it for them. Oh well, the world moves ever forward.
I did find glimmers of light in my trips to the jeans outlet and big box. I actually got a pair of pants that fit and remotely resemble the ones I’ve known and loved for so long.And there in the CD section of the big box, lonely and in need of a home, was the 35th anniversary edition of “The Power And The Glory” 
by Gentle Giant (one of my favorite bands of all time, as well as the first band I ever saw live in grade 8). Their singer, Derek Schulman, became an A&R rep for PolyGram (he signed Bon Jovi), and later became the president of Atco Records.
I also picked up “Canon” by Ani DiFranco, a woman who writes amazing lyrics and kicks ass. She also runs her own record company, Righteous Babe. This is an anthology of her work over the past decade or so, with some new tunes and new versions of a few older tunes thrown into the mix.
Maybe the industry should simply get out of the way and let musicians run things…
that was hilarious! i love reading your blog… and i hope you are doing well, tim (with one ‘m’)…