This past Wednesday, My Generation owners Tom, Sue and Bob Kiss e-mailed their customers to announce "with heavy hearts" that the store is for sale by owner. "Our aim is to sell and leave the business in the hands of someone who will carry on in our style of eclectic selection at reasonably low prices; it would also be great if they kept all or most of the crew intact." Interested parties were asked to call the store at (440) 871-5586. In a follow up e-mail they responded to a large number of inquiries about price: "We're asking $585,000 for all those good vibrations."
Here's hoping they find a buyer. A store like My Generation offers a lot more to customers than buying CDs from Amazon or burning them from KaZaA. It's a place to find new sounds or rediscover old ones serendipitously, by hearing them over the store's PA, or having them thrust into your hands by a clerk who knows your buying habits and says, "I know you would love this one." It's a place to make friends. It's a central node in the local musical community, supporting local bands and venues. In the right kind of neighborhood, this kind of store can be an anchor, stimulating foot traffic and other shopping, eating and drinking, in the same manner as a great independent bookstore. A store like this is the kind of thing that makes a city livable, that makes it a desirable place for creative people to come and stay.
Will My Generation find a buyer? These are tough times for CD retail, independent or otherwise, given file sharing, Internet retail, and competition from big box retailers like Best Buy who price their CDs low to get bodies in the store. Even Tower Records is struggling, having filed for bankruptcy protection in recent weeks. And we all know the music is bound to migrate more decisively to the digital realm eventually. Yet, there are some reasons to be hopeful about CD retail. Thanks to the spam, the decoy MP3s, the privacy concerns, the time and effort required, and the threat of lawsuits for illegal ones, people are realizing they would rather pay some amount of money and avoid the hassles of downloading (which is why the bulk of CD purchases are now by people in their 30s and 40s with more money but less time and less free bandwidth than college kids). The labels have finally figured out that their outrageous prices are a big part of the problem, and Universal has actually lowered its prices several dollars. The labels are also starting to add bonus goodies on their C Ds? that can't be had by downloading.
The Internet isn't all bad for CD retail either. While radio has all but abandoned its role as a forum for exposing new music, the Internet is now filling that role, with streaming, band websites, mailing lists that connect fans directly to bands without label intermediation, recommendation engines of increasing sophistication, legitimate downloads from services like iTunes, and yes, file sharing all exposing new music to listeners who had nowhere to hear it a few years back. Finally, the Internet provides ways for retailers to drive business in the doors of their storefront - such as e-mail lists, customized e-mail alerts, and e-mail and website promotions. More importantly, the Internet has allowed local indies to go global, by selling their wares through aggregator sites like GEMM.com and Froogle, and even through the sites of erstwhile competitors such as Amazon and Ebay.
This is not just wishful thinking on my part. A Bay Area indy chain with three stores called Amoeba Music is thriving with a model not unlike My Generation's large selection (twice that of a Tower Records in each Amoeba store), lots of used C Ds?, knowledgeable staff. Check out these flattering profiles of Amoeba in Fast Company at http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/66/whatsselling1.html and New York Times http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F30A17FE3A580C738EDDAE0894DB404482 then imagine what a lively store like this, drawing die-hard visitors from around the region, could do to help a location like Shaker Square or lower Euclid Avenue. Perhaps the city and/or a local developer could sweeten the pot for a prospective purchaser by providing incentives to move My Generation to such a location, where it could be better leveraged as an anchor. If no buyer materializes, local stakeholders should explore whether the store could be run as a co-op, as the Oberlin bookstore and a few others have done successfully. A co-op might be eligible for philanthropic support. It's time to think creatively about how to keep this valuable cultural and community asset in town. from Cool Cleveland reader Tim Connors (:divend:)