The ebbs and flows of the music industry over the past 25 years have been very interesting. As much as I like the Internet, at times, I am saddened about the impact it has had on browsing and buying music at local stores. I just wish there were some nice dedicated shops in or very close to my small town. There are record shops around here, but I have to drive a fair distance and through a lot of traffic to get to them.
So,
www.discogs.com is my friend.
Agree completely.
Around twenty years ago, manly, I suspect, because the advent of CDs had prompted a lot of people with music collections to switch largely to CDs, browsing in large music stores was a sort of bliss.
Most of the large ones had a dedicated classical (and world) section, almost invariably staffed by a young (or older) enthusiast. I loved visiting them, because the depth of knowledge frequently included being able to discuss the merits of different recordings of the same piece of music. Actually, in my teaching days, and postgrad days, I spent countless hours of my life in such places.
Now, most of them have closed, and I regret that; ordering music on Amazon (yes, the range and convenience is something I like) is not the same and gives nothing like the same pleasure.
Because, when browsing, in addition to choosing whatever you had gone in there to buy, very often, you also emerged with something else - maybe a CD that caught your eye, or, sometimes, the music that the shop was playing, which you would ask about, leading to a discussion, recommendations.......in other words an agreeable (and instructive - because you always learned something new) human exchange between two people who loved music.
