by Ice Dragon

Created on: February 22, 2009   Last Updated: February 27, 2009

Several things make up the "ideal" music store. First and foremost is staff. The staff must be at least fairly pleasant to deal with. I don't think anyone would really care if a staff member has fifteen pounds of metal pierced through the skull, or the ink from a dozen squids making tattoos on the arms, neck, or legs. The staff must be courteous and have bathed that day. If I go into a store to plunk my hard earned cash on the counter, I don't want to be smelling last week's dirty socks.

Next is music selection.
A music store should have a huge variety, and I'm not talking about just several different flavors of rock' music. I've been in several big name music stores in malls, that have a rock' section of a respectable size, a slightly smaller hip-hop/rap section, an even smaller country section, and a minuscule other' section that had a mish-mash of classical, jazz, international, etc and that's it. I'm sorry, but there's more to music than just those three.

There's also general recovery/stocking efforts. I've been in several stores where they have Obituary (a death metal band) in with the general pop section, even though the rock' section was just a few feet away, and it stayed there for over two months. I finally pointed this out to the clerk, and he said (and I quote) "Well, move it over then". Needless to say, I don't shop there anymore (probably they went out of business rather quickly). Granted there will be a few goofs here or there, but at least TRY to get it right, people. On a related note, if the classical section is down to a handful of oddities, try ordering some more. If you are left with one Kitaro CD in your new age' section, get on the phone and do some ordering. Also, alphabetizing is essential! If I go into a store for Beethoven and don't see it under B' in classical', I'm not going to search anywhere else. There's no reason for me to search in R' for Beethoven.

Finally the last, but probably most important thing for me when looking for a music store, is staff knowledge. Yes, this is kind of related to my first point about the staff. However, if a staff member smells great, but doesn't know the music what's the point? This actually happened to my mom's friend several years ago. Mom and I were out shopping with her at the mall, and we went into a music store.

"Do you have Phantom of the Opera'?" asked Barb, mom's friend.

"Is that like Nightmare on Elm Street'?" asked the clerk.

I asked, "How about Wagner's The Ring' cycle?"

"Lord of the Rings is a book, man, go to B. Dalton's next door."

No, I'm not making that up. Yes, I know that getting someone knowledgeable in all forms of music to be employed at a music store is rather slim. However, the staff should be at least generally familiar with them. It helps having a variety of in-store music playing over the sound system, not just punk (or rap, metal, or whatever).

One final note: if a store is going to be selling used music, they must make sure the ENTIRE thing plays well, not just the first few seconds of each song.

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