Thanksgiving, interesting holiday. There is no real purpose to it that i can immediately think of- to give thanks? thats just silly, lets be honest.
One thing I am not thankful for is Best Buy. With the demise of the legendary Tower, consumers are forced to look elsewhere for their music. In suburban locations, such as where i work, there are no Virgin Megastores, so the only options are the Big Box Retailers. I ran into a problem once before when searching for Jeff Tweedys most recent DVD, and ended up nearly hurling bricks throught the windows of WalMart, Target, and Best Buy. The first 2, i dont expect to have any music, they dont pretend to be media outlets. But fucking BB, come on man.
Today Tom Waits released “Orphans” a boxed set of 3 CD’s, which i am incredibly excited for. So, on my lunch break, I go to Best Buy which is close to work. First of all, the people working there are just plain ridiculous. After a painful 7 minutes of watching the person type “Tom Wakes” into the title area of the screen, i say “umm, mabye you should type that under artist?” Apparently, they show that they have it in stock, but have no idea where it is. Nothing is organized there, its just piles of crap.
The main thing we lose with stores like Tower, is the dedication to one specific thing. If i go to a car dealership, i expect them to know about cars. If i go to a butcher, i want to be told wonderful things about specific cuts of meat and poultry. At tower, they would have immediately identified the product i was looking for, and could have told me where to find it. When you go to best buy or wal mart or some shit like that, do you really expect the people there to know everything about washere/dryers, DVD Players, Computers, Digital Cameras, Office Furniture, Children’s apparell, boxed cereal, and CD’s? Of course not. In the opinion of Steven A Weiss, thats why these fuckers will fail eventually.
Sure, i could order it online, but i dont want to wait a few days and pay shipping. But eventually, that will be the only way to do it. damnit man, i’m so fucking defeated. Where will we go once the stupidity of these big box retailers is just too much to stand? (if its not already…)
I have no point to this rant, i understand you cant afford to pay these people an actual salary so they can learn about shit in the store or care, I also understand that its not financally a good move to open a specialty store.
BUT, the record labels and retailers messed it up for themselves. 18.99 is a RIDICULOUS price to have to pay for a single CD album. They should cost 12-13$. Of course no ones buying actual CD’s anymore, thats rape!
In this case, I just want to hear some Tom Waits, in the highest quality possible, without any DRM mojo lurking in my files, and i’d like the special 96 page booklet that comes with it. Is that too much to ask? Apparently, it is. I feel another email coming on….