Mixed Feelings: Should us Serious Music Fans bother Shopping at Fred’s and those other Traitorous ‘Record’ Shops?

I’m a major fan of intelligent, well-intentioned good music; whether it be classical, jazz, blues, rock or the various flavours of indigenous ‘world music’. Good music both informs and challenges me, occasionally inspiring my own creativity. Needless to say, the world of Justin Bieber and Taylor Swift is both foreign and anathema to me—completely beneath my ability to comprehend. I like music that aims to appeal on a level above the lowest common denominator. And, as the few people who truly know me would tell you, there’s only one real way for me to listen to music: on vinyl LP.

Maybe it was growing up listening to my parents’ and grandparents’ LPs. Maybe it was my reacting to the overrated CD and the virtually invisible MP3. Maybe it was just my good sense being put to use. Whatever the case, the LP record is my audio medium of choice. It definitely has both superior sound and superior packaging. Furthermore, regardless of the medium, people still think in terms of LPs, making references to a group's or artist’s new album.

Taking this into consideration, I certainly have mixed feelings about the promotional stance taken by local record store Fred’s in recent months.

For those of you who don’t know—or, like myself, are too young to remember—there was a time in the 1970s and ’80s when Fred’s was known as Fred’s Records. Then, sometime in the late ’80s or thereabouts, the ‘Records’ mysteriously fell off the shop’s name. By this time, cassettes had become the predominant medium among car owners and morons, and compact discs were being touted as the greatest thing since the beltless sanitary napkin. Fred’s (Records) acquiesced to such yuppie trends, and were soon shoving the overpriced and overhyped CDs down people’s throats like polio vaccine. My father recalls looking for the latest Sonic Youth LP, Goo, in the summer of 1990, and being told that it wasn’t available on vinyl. This was pure expediency, if not a base lie, for the vinyl version was easily obtainable as an American or European import. (There’s a copy staring at me from my LP shelf right this minute.)

This sort of practice was by no means confined to Fred’s. Record stores right across Canada and other countries did their damnedest to promote the inferior yet compact disc over the superior yet bulky LP. The results were twofold: the LP was rendered extinct in most ‘mainstream’ Canadian record stores by the early 1990s, and the record stores themselves were bankrupt and extinct by the turn of the century. It appears those marketing ‘geniuses’ at HMV, Sam The Record Man, A & A, etc did not foresee the rise of the internet and MP3 file-sharing. Ha!

Well, lo and behold, suddenly Fred’s is officially Fred’s Records again, complete with a new website, promotional appearances on local media, and various other celebratory measures recognizing their recent 40th Anniversary (1972—2012). It seems they’ve decided that vinyl is the way of the future. This easy decision, of course, has been informed by the fact that they are the only real independent music shop left in the province, and one of only two or three left in Atlantic Canada overall. In other words, they’re in a position to do whatever the hell they want, and there’s only one logical thing left to do: party like it’s 1958. Their website goes so far as to plead with us: “[...] just because you don’t have a record player yet doesn’t mean you won’t soon – so why not start buying your favourite new releases on vinyl now and start building that collection so that when you do own a turntable you’ve got lots of great music already.” Really.

So now I’m thinking, why should any of us serious music fans—particularly those in our parents’ gen-X age category—suddenly return to the few remaining record shops, patronizing them with our custom? Most of us serious enough to still want LPs moved our custom to (often cheaper) American and European online record stores once the internet took off in popularity in the intervening years. I must admit, I’ve dropped by Fred’s and bought releases by Sonic Youth and its individual members in recent months (like father, like daughter, I guess). In fact, I was actually lurking among the bins that evening in late August of 2011 when the staff announced that they had just hooked up the in-store turntable for the first time since 1987, and began blasting old Chicago blues records. Still, I did not on those few occasions feel obligated to step inside and actually purchase something. I don’t owe these bastards anything. Neither do you.

So what do you good readers out there think? Should we refrain from frequenting these businesses that pulled the vinyl rug out from under our feet over two decades ago? Or do we forgive these rotten traitors, and take advantage of all the groovy platters now available (or reavailable) on twelve-inch vinyl at such locations? I’m still debating this one. I like my music and especially on vinyl, but it would not exactly play on my conscience if I never set foot in that Duckworth St building again.

In the meantime, while you think about this, here’s a link to Fred’s new website: http://www.fredsrecords.com/. Decide for yourself whether or not the return of the word ‘Records’ is a blasphemous insult.