Try Another Can of Brandied Yamboats
Full as I
was, I yet went looking for something else to eat. I hadn’t so far eaten anything that really
connected with me.
“It’s a
matter of aesthetics,” I explained to anyone who would listen.
The problem
with the way that a store like 2cd and Charles displays its CDs (and all of its
CDs are used, as far as I can tell) is that they emphasize the covers. There are two kinds of CD purchasers: the
casual one and the serious one. The
casual one purchases CDs mainly by the cover art (or name recognition), but the
serious one needs only the name of the artist and the title of the album,
printed on the spine of the jewel case, to make his decision. For a store like 2cd and Charles the CDs are
only there to suck you into the store in the hopes that you will buy a new book
(that’s why they’re really in business.)
This whole situation points to a fundamental misunderstanding in the
music business: yes, sales of big-name, mainstream artists by mush-minded
customers are going to be a big part of your bottom line, but if you really
want to sell a lot of the lesser known artists, you need to focus on the
serious music consumer. Of course, we
mainly purchase used CDs anyway. Only a
chump (an Adele fan, say) pays full price.
All of this to say that the way 2cd and Charles displays their CDs makes
it hard for a guy like me to shop. And
I’m still hungry, dammit, still searching for the next thing to satisfy me, if
only temporarily.
.
