Maybe Centre Street in JP isn't such a good location for a CD store

By adamg on Tue, 09/16/2008 - 12:28pm

Sam Baltrusis reports that Mud Dog Media, which replaced CD Spins on Centre Street in Jamaica Plain this past April, is already out of business.

Neighborhoods:

Jamaica Plain

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Comments

retail stores

By Anonymous
Tue, 09/16/2008 - 12:41pm

I'll still buy a cd as a present or if one of my favorite bands cuts a new disk but new music, not so much. Since the iPod, I tend to buy new music online.

I wonder want percentage of music is sold via retail store versus online at iTunes? Any music buyers out there?

not sure

By Brett
Tue, 09/16/2008 - 1:47pm

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080402-appl...

A few minutes with google and you can probably dig up more numbers about online vs. brick-and-mortar; those numbers are hard to figure from the above story, because Walmart and Amazon both sell music electronically and in stores.

The problem with iTunes et al is that I frequently run across stuff I just cannot find- which is where small independent shops like this can potentially come into play (though I more often end up on mp3sparks or the P2P networks, but some stuff can't even be found there.) However, they've got to be aggressive and engaging, like the independent video rental place up near the Milky Way...not just throw up a sign in the window that says "YES WE'RE OPEN".

The Mud Dog place never really seemed to get its act in gear from the day it opened (they never put up a sign outside, or window displays), plus it had to contend with construction from City Feed making it look like the whole building was closed...and now for the last week or so they've been ripping the hell out of Centre Street, right near there...

I Still Buy CDs

By Brains_yummm
Tue, 09/16/2008 - 1:18pm

I like shopping for music still, I can see it going the way of the dinosaurs but until then I will enjoy browsing piles and piles of used CDs for bargains, rarities and oddball crap. There is still Rhythm and Muse in JP for your music shopping pleasure.

I live around the corner,

By Arborway
Tue, 09/16/2008 - 1:40pm

I live around the corner, and the biggest problem seems to be that it was open at seemingly random days and times. I went a few times to track down a copy of Songs of Love and Hate in late spring, but it was always closed.

After a few weeks I gave up and went downtown.

Once in a great while I'd pass by and notice that the lights were on and the door open, but it was obvious that it just wasn't going to work.

The one thing that I wonder

By ShadyMilkMan
Tue, 09/16/2008 - 1:43pm

The one thing that I wonder about with cd and record stores is how they could manage to survive in a world where people buy music online. One thing that I think about is a "music" store that is more like a cafe where people go in and hang out. There would be machines that sell music where you could have it downloaded to your ipod/music device right there. It would also feature local artists and indie bands that people may have never heard of, thus sort of keeping the vibe of a traditional record store. I can see people congregating in a place where you were encouraged to listen to your ipod but still be in a social setting. Its a similar concept to Barnes and Nobles having a coffee shop except for the fact that you can condense all that music into a few machines that interface with the players.

I'd rather own the music

By Gareth
Tue, 09/16/2008 - 2:05pm

If you buy online tracks, you're just renting the music - until your DRM scheme goes haywire, your vendor goes bankrupt, your hard drive crashes, you upgrade the system and fail, etc. Then it goes poof.

If you only want to have the music for a little while, until you get tired of it, that makes sense. But I'm in it for the long haul. I only buy music I think I'll want to listen to in a few years, so I'd rather buy and own the CD. I'll rip it onto my computer, synch it onto my iPod, etc., but when the shit hits the fan, I still have the CD.

The idea of renting music on a subscription basis (flat monthly fee, say) makes sense to me. But the idea of amassing a huge and expensive pile of perishable zeroes and ones seems crazy to me. I'll take the plastic, thanks, use it a few different ways, and keep it in a cabinet for durable backup.

Still Buying CDs

By Suldog
Tue, 09/16/2008 - 2:27pm

I don't own an I-Pod or any other similar device for playing MP3s. I still buy CDs.

(Disclaimer: I'm 51. Age, and habit, may be a factor for some. I do a lot of work with sound, so I have no problem with the technology, but I still prefer to have the CD.)

Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com

I too still buy cds

By stephencaldwell
Tue, 09/16/2008 - 2:40pm

I like having CD art and liner notes and lyrics. Plus, while I have an iPod now, I may not in the future, and it'd be a PITA to try and switch any music that I may have bought via iTunes to a vendor non-specific format.

I even sometimes pick up a vinyl here and there. I feel it'd just be "right" to own Miles Davis' Bitches Brew on vinyl.

Note: I'm 24.

Better quality, too

By merlinmurph
Tue, 09/16/2008 - 5:23pm

I still buy CD's, too, for all the already mentioned reasons. I also prefer them because the sound quality is much better. When you compress a sound file 90+%, you're going to lose something. All the MP3s I've listened to simply have less sound to them. Whether that makes a difference to you is up to you.
When I get a CD, first thing I do is rip to .flac for my SlimDevice so I can play it thru my stereo. I also rip it to MP3 so I can put it on the MP3 players.
I've heard too many stories of people losing hundreds of $$$$ of iTunes stuff to go that route.

sul, you have to come over

By bostnkid
Tue, 09/16/2008 - 2:42pm

i bought an ipod nano a couple of years ago. i love it.it has every cd i own in a device not much bigger then a credit card. it is simple to use and it sounds great. i used to look for the smallest, loudest portable CD players i could find. i would always drop it within a year and be back to BEST BUY for the next one. for 200 bucks the nano is money well spent.and itunes is very user friendly.come on over suldog, you will love it!

Well, that's the thing

By Stewart
Wed, 09/17/2008 - 12:59am

If you can put every CD you own on an iPod Nano, you don't actually care about music that much.

I've got an iPod -- my current model is the 160GB Classic -- and I love it to death, but I also own somewhere north of 3000 CDs and at least that many LPs, and there's just no way a hard drive is going to replace all that. For me, an iPod is an adjunct, nothing more.

I still shop in CD stores. Heck, I just dropped nearly a hundred bucks at Newbury Comics last week, much of it on new vinyl (LPs by the Music Tapes, the Swirlies, and the Dickies, plus singles by Patti Smith and Stereolab) as well as CDs.

CD Spins was a terrible, cut-rate chain that was a pain to shop in. Mud Dog had a name that was crap enough that it made me never want to shop there to begin with. Places like that are going to go out of business.

I went over to the new

By Dave
Wed, 09/17/2008 - 11:41pm

I went over to the new mega-huge Newbury Comics in Norwood at the old Boch Toyota site and found their selection to be sorely lacking. The store was mostly empty floor space and they seemed to have less actual music merchandise than their other locations. Aside from being able to laugh at the fact that people are paying $28 for vinyl it was a wasted trip and I walked out empty handed. I can't remember the last time I couldn't find anything I wanted. I hope this is because they're just getting started out...

records outlasting cd's

By mediaseth
Tue, 09/16/2008 - 3:23pm

Regardless of where you stand on the records vs. CD's argument, there's been recent press (google it) on how records never really died out and are making a comeback. Perhaps instead of a CD store, JP needs a records & CD store for the serious music collector. It's that niche market that floats independent brick and mortar music shops. Record collectors are more likely to want to view the item up close before purchasing rather than risk mail-order. I know that's how I am. On the other hand, I don't think twice about buying CD's online. I won't pay for an mp3 or aac that has DRM or is compromised by bad compression. I may pay for a high quality, non-compressed, non drm embedded file.

Perhaps instead of a CD

By Jeff F
Wed, 09/17/2008 - 10:26pm

Perhaps instead of a CD store, JP needs a records & CD store for the serious music collector.

You mean like the late, lamented Hi-Fi Records? What a wonderful store that was - until the landlord doubled Deb's rent in 2003 and then *poof*!

I know that most of the time it's the big retail chains that get blamed for killing off small businesses, but I think that here in the Boston metro it's more often been the naked greed of certain property owners.

I fully agree, not only does

By ShadyMilkMan
Thu, 09/18/2008 - 9:56am

I fully agree, not only does it drive out small stores that are already here it hampers the creation of new stores from forming that are not part of a national alliance. Some of the rents are so insane that only well funded national chains can afford the start up costs, or people who are willing to take massive loans to keep afloat for the first few years.

too much personality...

By cscott
Tue, 09/16/2008 - 4:51pm

This may mark how far removed from college I am but I dont want a record shop with that much personality. Not that the guy was at all unfriendly, I'm just not the demographic that place was built around. It seemed kinda odd to me for the neighborhood, JP might be weird but it aint Allston.

harrrison, dylan, petty, orbison

By Anonymous
Wed, 09/17/2008 - 2:26am

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewWyW6lT1HE
http://tinyurl.com/6fgrvz

does jvc really make this?

By Anonymous
Wed, 09/17/2008 - 5:04am

[img]http://craphound.com/images/202638844.jpg[/img]

hahaha

By mediaseth
Wed, 09/17/2008 - 6:47am

I have a book on great and not so great design in home audio. I think this "thing" would fit right in. The sad part is, there are people who think this would sound good because of the way it looks. It can't possibly sound good. First of all, the speaker enclosures are going to be thin plastic. Secondly.. LOOK AT IT!! I prefer the classic late 70's/early 80's boom box design. They even sounded better.

It looks kind of like a

By ShadyMilkMan
Wed, 09/17/2008 - 12:49pm

It looks kind of like a spaceship... I have a radio kind of like that from when I was in high school and thought it would be cool to get big radio because I thought it would sound great. Its not quite as ghastly as this but its still pretty large and has what I believe to be fake subwoofers on it. Ive come to the conclusion it doesnt even sound as good as one of those shelf units that are about the size of a large textbook and much more svelt looking. I still have it but its hidden uner my bed and I use it as a speaker for the laptop, that its pretty good at I must admit, but the shelf unit is in the living room, its much classier.

(Hardly the audiophile, I'm listening to a 40 year old Miles Davis record on my laptop with these that my wife picked up for me at Tuesday Morning for $20.)