More often than not, when a bevy of free time decides to unload itself on me (which, incidentally, is more often than not), I can be found at Borders, wandering the lit or short-essay aisles, strapping on pairs of headphones, sipping a grande Mochaberry. I know I’m not supposed to get my pop-culture fix at an institution so corporate as the Books-Music-Cafe; if I really wanted to play by heart and support my local indie spots, I’d waste those hours at Vintage Vinyl, carrying-out Meshuggah (fighting the sumptuous temptation of a Starbucks frappucino, just across the street). Don’t think I don’t feel guilty.
Only so guilty, though. For one, the listening capacity at Borders trumps Vintage by a quarter-ton, if only because the headphones don’t leave crevasses in your skull and you can actually listen to almost everything. (You have to ignore the cutesy pay-for-play suggestion/descriptions, true, but then again it’s almost amusing when you pass that Gavin DeGraw blurb for the umpteenth time and it still says, with hilariously glib, incorrect certainty, “You’ve chosen well.”) Admirable though Vintage may be in attempting to guide my ears towards carefully selected LPs, I’d rather just be able to switch from Joe Strummer to Starsailor to Michael McDonald (the last one purely for kicks, I assure you-I recommend “Motown,” his recent album of hilariously sacreligious soul covers, and a true panacea for any depressed soul) at the momentary scan of a barcode.
More importantly, though, is the flat-out price of it all. I respect when people demand that we “support independent record stores,” and I genuinely admire those who do so. I just can’t afford it. I’m a college student, and, as a general rule, college students aren’t exactly bathing in disposable funds. Incidentally, I just got a new job, and thus was able this past weekend for the first time in some time to guiltlessly drop some cash on a disc-The Thrills, “So Much For The City,” jury’s still out-but still…I bought it at Best Buy, for $9.99 sticker price. At Vintage-or Streetside, or any indie store lacking a national presence-such a purchase would likely set me back a good fifteen bucks. For a poor, collegiate, music-buying bastard like myself, that five-dollar difference makes a difference, and adds up. Record labels are wisely cranking down the price of their new releases and lesser-known acts, but search Amazon.com and you’ll still see list prices of $18.98 for, say, the fresh Norah Jones. (On which the jury is in. Spectacular album. Songs like “Be Here to Love Me” are reasons life’s worth living.) While conglomerates like Best Buy, Borders and Circuit City can afford to plummet far beneath that, indies can only go so low. And thus people like me are forced to the unfortunate conclusion that, well…fuck Vintage Vinyl.
(Now Hear This’s usual author, the incomparable Jess Minnen, will return next week; in the interim, she can be contacted at her place of work, Vintage Vinyl.)
Like I said, this pains me. Then again, I actually buy my records. Some people find this baffling. A conversation recently erupted before my screenwriting class, wherein my declared status as a musical “purist”-one who purchases rather than downloads-was challenged by a skeptical professor who apparently underestimates the ability of foolish twenty-one-year-olds to blow lifetimes’ worth of cash on a CD collection climbing towards five hundred. “It’s the fading art of the album,” I argued, “if people keep downloading individual songs for ninety-nine cents a pop (or free), artists won’t bother to craft unified musical statements anymore. They’ll just punch out five or six singles and post them all on iTunes. iPods are evil. They’re like the Segways of personal music accessories. Segways filled with Christ-awful songs by Incubus and Hilary Duff.”
Etc. Needless to say, I find myself standing on some musical moral middleground. I can’t bring myself to spend five dollars more at my local independent blah-blah-blah, but I can find motivation to drop at least ten bucks on a set of songs I could likely garner for free, given time and a little bit of Internet moxie. A lot of people would probably file such symptoms under the “nonsensical” heading of their mental buddylist (probably while downloading Nickelback or something), but I’ll take being crazy if it means enjoying the smell of a new CD. Or the crisp anticipation that comes with peeling away the plastic. The satisfaction of letting one track flow into another and let the album take hold, like a picture, a book, a painting, or-as from me you might usually expect-a movie.
Oh, and one more thing. The ability to wax romantic about, say, ripping shrinkwrap. Even if it does say “Borders” on the sticker.
Celluloid Paralysis is live art. Be a part of it.