Tried To Buy... Weekend Edition

Despite the worst weather we've seen this season (yeah yeah, it was nothing, we know), hubby and I ventured out for some CD shopping. Maybe it was the fabulous luck we'd had last weekend, maybe it was the fact I'd finally heard enough tracks from some recent releases, but we had a decent number of CDs on our list:

• Cake - B-Sides and Rarities
• Weakerthans - Reunion Tour
• Neil Young - Prairie Wind
• Magnetic Fields - Distortion

All major labels, all somewhat recent releases (except the Neil Young, which came out in Sept/05). Was it foolish to think they could all be had and for a decent price?

Yes, apparently.

First stop was HMV, hoping they were seeing the same stock influx as A&B Sound. No such luck. Cake was selling at $14.99, which was reasonable, but the Magnetic Fields -- which had streeted that week -- was nowhere to be found. Neither were the Weakerthans, which was very surprising. What is the shelf life of a new release CD that isn't Justin Timberlake or Led Zeppelin? Prairie Wind was there, it was part of HMV's new lower prices promotion: $19.99 marked down from $25.99. Right.

We left the Cake CD and headed over to A&B Sound. Surely they would be able to supply us these few titles.

Or not. No Cake. No Magnetic Fields. And the Neil Young at a bargain $22.49, even though they had around 12 copies of it, obviously brought in for a sale. And I don't know how, but in just a week their stock managed to look.... picked over.

However, a single copy of the Weakerthans was there for $14.99. And I'd been hoping to pick up a DVD copy of the Neil Young movie Heart of Gold, which A&B had for around $16.00, so we were partially successful.

A stop at another HMV came up empty again. We broke down and asked someone there and after checking, we were told Magnetic Fields didn't come out until the 22nd. This seems a little off since not only is it available on iTunes, but a friend of hubby's has already picked it up. But the reality is, it's probably the biggest release of this week and hubby had checked three different chains without success. We'll hold off "Tried To Buy" judgment until next week. Maybe then we'll find Neil Young's Prairie Wind for less than $19.

Until then, the same Cake CD is on iTunes for $7.99. And through Apple you get two tracks not on the CD. Hmmm....

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.

Tried to Buy.....

It took us a while to get out for this week's CD shopping. I wasn't terribly inspired by the releases this week and hubby wasn't picking up anything at all. Our planned hiking was cancelled by trees blocking an access road, so we opted to stop at A&B (what were we thinking).

I'll rant about A&B Sound in a later post, but suffice to say we usually don't have a ton of faith when we resort to A&B for our new releases. I'm not sure if their problems are financial (likely), or lack of interest on the part of the buyers (very likely), but we often walk out without most of the week's releases. Sometimes the catalog is good though, and they go through spurts of bringing in tons of stock, so we gave it a shot.

Plus, if nothing else, I wanted to pick up the Seinfeld - Season 9 DVD set that was released this week.

Well to recap, my CDs this week were:

• David Byrne - "The Knee Plays"
• Result: DENIED! In fact, there wasn't a single David Byrne CD in stock.
• Neko Case - ""Furnace Room Lullaby"
• Result: SUPPLIED! But, I don't think this was the reissue. No matter, this was sort of an on the edge CD for me anyway, so I held back.
• Sigur Ros - "Hvarf/Heim"
• Result: I lied. Hubby wasn't even interested, so we didn't check.

Underwhelmed by the rest of the catalog that was there (despite a whack of mid-price MCA titles obviously brought in for a price code promotion), I wandered off to price out the Seinfeld set (not sure when I became such a bargain shopper).

No Seinfeld. Not on the new release section, the best sellers, the TV series section. Nada. As much as I hate to ask, I just had to.

The one (!) guy working there says, no they're not sold out, they haven't even gotten them in yet. I can't help but gasp out "You've got to be kidding." He stops just short of shrugging and goes back to what he was doing.

Isn't the Seinfeld set kind of, uh, major? Especially in a week when precious little else came out in music or DVD? Especially mid-November when all the Christmas decorations are coming out and shoppers are starting to look for the easy gifts?

I have no idea how this company is still in business.