Tried To Buy.... Success Story

The whole "Tried to Buy" segment of this blog sort of fell by the wayside with the dismal release schedule of December. Since January is usually pretty dire itself, I didn't really anticipate much shopping this month either.

But you know, when you're a die-hard music consumer, you eventually have to venture out to the stores anyway, and on Sunday, that's what hubby and I did.

Maybe it's because our expectation levels were low, maybe it's because we waited just the right time after the Boxing Day/Week sale madness, maybe the chain knew it was time to bring out the sale stock, who knows. But A&B Sound was a beautiful, beautiful thing.

First off, I managed to add not one, not two, but three Bruce Cockburn titles to the collection, and can finally update the Cockburn Tracker. I was willing to pay full pop for any of these titles if I was ever lucky enough to see them in stock -- Sunday I got Salt, Sun and Time, Joy To The World and Night Vision for $5.99 each!

A&B brought in a ton of titles from the bargain lines from most labels, most notably Universal. There were plenty of reissued titles sitting at $9.99 and recent releases at $13.99. The catalog was pretty decently stocked.

Hubby picked up every Sly and the Family Stone reissue for $9.99/disc. We also scooped a bunch of classic Neil Young at varying prices. We picked up some current stuff too, lest anyone think we're turning into solely classic rock listeners: Dustin Bentall for me, Orson for hubby. I think he bought some Who as well, but I'm pretending I didn't see that.

We pushed our luck by also stopping at HMV where the selection was ok, but the catalog was underwhelming.

If there was one downside to A&B Sound, it was that the glorious re-stocking of the rock catalog came at the expense of other genres: folk, jazz, world music, and reggae all looked positively anemic. Country music seemed to be shrinking as well. I guess there are decisions to be made, and from a retail perspective, I can't argue that if you want to bring people in, bulk up your popular sections first. Besides, without a knowledgeable buyer for the specialty sections, most stores have likely lost those shoppers to online stores long ago.

But a round of applause to A&B for bulking up their store at just the right time. Hopefully they're rewarded with a strong January despite the usual empty new release schedule.

See what happens when you have plenty of stock at reasonable prices? People buy CDs. And some people buy a lot of them. Go figure.