WHERE DO YOU GET YOUR MUSIC?
Dec 1, 2005 12:00 PM, The Remix Editors, Robert Hanson Erin Hutton Kylee Swenson
It's seems like a simple-enough question, but these days, it can be anything but. Between legal and illegal downloads, Websites such as Myspace.com and Tribe.net and online zines like Pitchfork, it's not hard to spend an entire day listening to music without leaving your house. Add to that the countless thousands (many of whom are reading this magazine) who have the skill to create and make available their own music, and it becomes clear that a glut of new music is out there.
Although all of this freedom to create and distribute music is wonderful for both the artists and the fans, this digital revolution has left a few innocent casualties in its wake. One of the most unfortunate losses is the good old brick-and-mortar record store. And we're not talking about those disgusting chain stores that inhabit the space between Sbarro and Gap at your local mall; we're talking about the niche stores and the mom-and-pop places that take root in college towns and arts districts, next to coffee shops — the places where you can buy concert tickets and rolling papers at the same counter.
For decades, independent record stores were the only places where underground, unsigned and underappreciated music was given a chance to be heard. And more than just providing a place for nonmainstream music to exist, the owners and employees were passionate people who actually cared about the music they were selling. As cool as iTunes and other download sites might be — and believe me, they have plenty of our money — they will never have that kind of personality.
Now, of course, record stores aren't dead by any means, but they are becoming increasingly rare. So the next time you feel like your music collection is getting stale, think about stepping away from the computer (it's scary, we know), and go hit up your local independent record store — it is the holidays after all. In addition to finding a rare gem for yourself or somebody else, you might even be able to convince the store to start carrying your latest opus. Hey, networking is more than just passing out flyers to drunken hipsters!
As this is the end of the year and all, we would like to say farewell to one of our longtime columns, “Turntablist Techniques.” (Never fear, DJs, we're not abandoning you; our coverage will just take a different form.) Robin Smith has been writing “Turntablist Techniques” since the earliest days of Remix, and his expertise and candor have been a valuable component of this magazine — and, thankfully, he will remain onboard as a contributing writer. This isn't the only change we have in store for 2006. Next year, we promise to continue enhancing the Remix experience, and you'll begin to see these changes as the next few issues come together. We're certain that you're going like what you see.
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