Only a pawn in their game

For fans of the compact disc, like me, these truly are dark times. CD sales continue to plummet, indie record stores and regional chains like Tower Records, a long gone heaven for us music geeks (where else could I get such imports as Babyshambles' Down in Albion and the 2 disc Deluxe Edition of Pulp's Different Class), shutter their doors, and sites like PirateBay and Demonoid tempt us like internet serpents, spoiling any hopes of the pleasure of waiting for a new album to hit shelves (especially for me; every time an anticipated new album leaks early, I cave faster than you can say "oink"). Now to add salt to the wound, big box chains like Wal-Mart and Best Buy are in the process of slowly wiping albums off of their floor space in favor of more profitable merchandise like video games and DVDs.

Whether we like it or not, these stores make up for at least 65% of music sales (including online and physical recordings), up from 20% a decade ago. These stores, more than any magazine, TV station, or website, help shape the music landscape, as their choices dictate which albums are widely available on store shelves across America. And now Wal-Mart and other chains have told labels to expect as much as twenty percent in cut-backs in shelving space over the next year. Which means that one will be much more likely to find the latest Britney Spears album Blackout in stock than the amazing Aretha Franklin rarities collection Rare & Unreleased Recordings from the Golden Reign of the Queen of Soul, released a week earlier (seriously, download her version of "Fool on the Hill" or "My Way" to hear some real pop music).

Now I don't blame these stores for reducing floor space in music. CD sales at big box chains have plummeted seventeen percent this year (more than the average fall of 14%), the worst sales week of the Soundscan era occurred this fall, and a holiday season that started off so promising with the Kanye/50 match-up has thus far been relatively anti-climatic. Meanwhile, the gaming industry continues to skyrocket, Apple continues to release such mouth-watering gadgets as the iPod Touch, and the movie industry is on the upswing with the advent of the Blu-ray and HD DVDs. So if they want to sell as many HD TVs and computers as possible, it makes sense for them to fill their floor space with products that will lure prospective buyers in, not with an entertainment medium that is in a perpetual free-fall.

But what saddens me is that, as much as I'd hate to admit it, these big box chains helped shaped what I listened to today. Meijer (the Midwest's version of Wal-Mart) is where I purchased my very first albums for my 10th birthday (all Beatles albums, coincidentally); in middle school, when I first started to expand my musical horizons, I would often stop at a Target to pick up an album by The Rolling Stones, Nirvana, and Everclear (yes, I was definitely a child of the 90s); and until I went to ASU, nearly all of my CDs were purchased at a big box chain, especially at Wal-Mart (since there is a huge Supercenter wear where I use to work). Now these same shelves and filled with the likes of Hannah Montana and High School Musical, and the fact that chains like Wal-Mart now refuse to carry albums that have a parental advisory sticker means that they'll never see any Rage Against the Machine albums amongst the hundreds of copies of Carnival Ride. On top of this, the music industry's faith in these chains, along with their general ineptness, forced many stores that catered to the business to close; yet these chains have now either left them for dead or have essentially held them hostage, threatening to cut back shelf space even more if they don't give them more exclusive content or lower prices even further.

To give you an idea of the sad state of music retail these days, I walked into a Wal-Mart a few weeks ago, the same one I frequented in high school, hoping to get a copy of Neil Young's Chrome Dreams II. "They have to have this album," I thought, "he's one of the most influential artists in music history." But I scanned over the new releases section, and it wasn't there. I scanned under the "Y" artists and then the entire music section, but still no dice. Finally I asked an employee if they had it in stock, and she couldn't find it. Then she looked at Wal-Mart's release schedule, and it wasn't even there. The new Bo Bice album was there; the new Seether album was there; of course Carrie Underwood's album was listed; even the new Robert Plant/Alison Krauss album was, surprisingly, there. But no Neil Young. Needless to say, I walked out of there with a bitter taste in my mouth.

However, there is a silver lining to be found in this dark, ominous cloud; I did end up finding it at Target.

— Jason Shoff