The Indie Dilemma?

[Chris Suyeda]

The chances are you may have already heard about Best Buy selling indie CDs for ~$7.99 (Cat Power, Broken Social Scene, Arcade Fire). While this is exciting and all, what about indie record stores that have been behind independent recordings all along? Mac McCaughan, head of Merge Records has posted his own opinion of this situation on the label's message board and you can read it here (http://mergerecords.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=3190&sid=0208eca24b06f3a92e640d87b93ac1eb).

What's everyone else's stance on this?

[JW]

It's all about making money man, I can understand why you would bwe upset because they're doing it but everyone wants a few dollars.

Even the indie labels, just because they're indie labels doesn't mean they want to be small forever, they want to make it big too, and this is helping them so of course they will do it.

[IndependentClauses]

...this is a rather dramatic problem.

The fact that Best Buy is selling them for 8 bucks means that they can sell CDs cheaper than the indie labels/indie distros/indie stores can. And Best Buy can take that hit, because they want the aspiring indie hipsters in the store to start looking at ipods, which they will, cause they want to be hipsters, and what's hipper than an ipod.

this is a scam- Best Buy is purposefully losing money to get people in their stores. Why buy from indie distros if there is a cheaper alternative at Best Buy? That spells c-r-a-s-h -a-n-d-b-u-r-n for a lot of indie record stores. and they're already endangered.

the record labels will live. the stores will not. and that saddens me.

[JW]

...this is a rather dramatic problem.

The fact that Best Buy is selling them for 8 bucks means that they can sell CDs cheaper than the indie labels/indie distros/indie stores can. And Best Buy can take that hit, because they want the aspiring indie hipsters in the store to start looking at ipods, which they will, cause they want to be hipsters, and what's hipper than an ipod.

this is a scam- Best Buy is purposefully losing money to get people in their stores. Why buy from indie distros if there is a cheaper alternative at Best Buy? That spells c-r-a-s-h -a-n-d-b-u-r-n for a lot of indie record stores. and they're already endangered.

the record labels will live. the stores will not. and that saddens me.
Maybe where I live just isn't big enough, but I have never seen an indie record store

[IndependentClauses]

I have two in my town. They're relegated to far out of the way places, but Starship Records and Tapes and $100 Taco are still surviving.

[redbassist66]

what i've found is that labels, specifily Victory, have put effort into getting into stores like Best Buy because they know that people will see them. the whole 8 dollar a pop thing shows that the stores don't think these albums will sell unless they are cheap. I find it sickening that labels will pull this stuff but they're making money and to a lot of them *coughvictorycough* that is more important than quality music.

[IndependentClauses]

Yeah, I'm really not a victory fan.

[artificial001]

...this is a rather dramatic problem.

The fact that Best Buy is selling them for 8 bucks means that they can sell CDs cheaper than the indie labels/indie distros/indie stores can. And Best Buy can take that hit, because they want the aspiring indie hipsters in the store to start looking at ipods, which they will, cause they want to be hipsters, and what's hipper than an ipod.

this is a scam- Best Buy is purposefully losing money to get people in their stores. Why buy from indie distros if there is a cheaper alternative at Best Buy? That spells c-r-a-s-h -a-n-d-b-u-r-n for a lot of indie record stores. and they're already endangered.

the record labels will live. the stores will not. and that saddens me.

exactly why i by from independent record stores even though the only two i like are about 45min from my house.