Best Buy is "The Man"

Before anyone out there goes, "yeah, you're totally right, I love those guys!" hold up a second. I mean "the man" as in that soul-sucking, dream-crushing, homogenizing, corporate hulk. They've been around a while now, and it absolutely drives me out of my mind how I feel I get cornered into going into that store at all. Until a few years ago, my record place was Tower Records. Admittedly at one time they too were kind of "the man" but they really managed to shake that image, in my mind and I enjoyed walking into the old store that not only reeked of incense and general funk, but of sheer credibility. Their catalogue was deep and no one ever asked if I needed help. In fact, the staff usually looked like they would eat you if you distracted them from the sketch of the tattoo they were drawing. That was fine with me, I know my way around a record store and half the time I'd be there for the sake of being there, not because I was on I mission to get in and out with a CD. Hours would fall away like loose shingles during a tornado.

Can't do that at Best Buy. It's an instant assault on the senses, obnoxious blue and a blasting mix of movies, music videos, and Muzak from speakers bigger than me. It's hectic and it takes only seconds before some frat-looking guy in a polo (read: this means he's all laid back and cool) asks if there's something he can help me find. "I'm in the CD aisle, right?" "Right." "Then I think I'll be able to use the handy-dandy alphabetized racks to find what I want. Thanks." Honestly, it really kills browsing for someone like me who likes to get absorbed in the cover art and is completely incredulous that anyone is talking to me while I'm perusing. I remember being in a Best Buy with my dad when I was about sixteen and of course getting approached. I was super flat and maybe a bit rude as I continued on up the aisle. He then told my dad about this great option for indecisive (no doubt) teenage girls like me who don't know what they want. They'll burn a CD of whatever songs I pick. I was pretty pissed. "Oh, really? You have iTunes and a CD burner too? What are the odds." I'm just asking to be left alone here. In most cases though, I try not to hold it against the employees personally, it's the company culture...but that doesn't make it any less offensive and annoying. They're cogs in the slaughter machine that killed my baby (and I know I'm not the only one who lost a record shop).


I'm particularly bothered today because I was just forced into making a purchase there. Unfortunately I'm out of driving distance from my legitimate alternatives. Where does that leave a person land-locked by suburbia? Walmart...which has about one aisle of current Top 40 crap at not so "Walmart prices." Target is okay, but still, their catalogue is only slightly deeper than Walmart. Not much indie stuff or local artists. Try getting your tiny little band into a Target or Walmart. (Oh Tower, I'm still crying over you). Hopefully there might be some place in the mall, but nothing is guaranteed. The most perfect illustration of this mess occurred when I was trying to find Sufjan Steven's Greetings from Michigan. Walmart didn't have a single copy, Tower had an entire shelf. It's the Starbucks syndrome. Unless I'm in a more urban locale, where else can I get coffee? Can anyone get coffee? It's not even a price issue anymore because it's all ridiculously expensive, but as a matter of principle I'd rather not go if I'm not backed into that corner. I don't want to be part of driving the "little guy" over the edge and out of business. The irony is that with the record industry in the state it's in, those plummeting record sales are going to catch up with giants like Best Buy eventually. It might take longer but it's coming. Their saving grace is that music isn't their only trick. Maybe Tower would still be around if they sold washing machines. Good grief. I need a nap.

Happy Labor Day.