Amoeba Music

Chicago Tribune

By Joshua Klein

It’s a warm Monday afternoon in Los Angeles, and Amoeba Records is bustling. A long line of customers winds through the racks of thousands of new and used CDs and LPs, waiting for one of the busy registers to open up. A steady stream of cars drives in and out of each of the store’s two parking lots, and shoppers constantly emerge from the two-story building, overstuffed bags in hand and satisfied smiles on their faces.

"Business is great, fantastic," says Marc Weinstein, co-owner of Amoeba, which also has locations in San Francisco and Berkeley. The Los Angeles store, generally considered to be the biggest record store in North America, opened in early 2001, right when the economic impact of Sept. 11 was being most felt, yet the mega-warehouse-size space has been busy ever since.

So how is it that Amoeba and other independent record stores are flourishing despite record label and industry lobbying group claims that the music industry is in a slump?

The numbers do paint a bleak picture. The Record Industry Association of America (RIAA) notes that CD shipments dropped 15 percent between 2000 and 2002, reinforcing the notion that the U.S. is in the midst of a record-buying recession. The record industry regularly blames Internet downloading for the sales drop, but while CD burning and MP3 trading has no doubt affected the music business, things aren’t so cut and dried.

Weinstein, along with a number of other owners and operators of independent records stores across America, also blames outdated and impersonal business models for industry woes, and they’re in a position to do something about it. Without the resources of the big national chains, independent and mom-and-pop stores might seem ill-suited to weather the tough sales market. But free from the big-business mindset of corporate labels and the chain stores beholden to big releases by bigger stars, independent records stores are increasingly in a position to succeed where so many big companies and chains are failing or faltering, finding unique and creative ways to trump the slump.

"They can abuse the statistics, but to some extent, in some markets, they’re probably right," says Weinstein about claims of decreasing record sales. "Customers have suffered to a great extent by the industry rotting out, or the chains coming through and wiping out all the indie stores, so the market could do little else but to turn to the likes of the Internet or whatever to try to make up for the loss."

"On the other hand, we really feel like it’s helped our business," he says. "We have an educated consumer that is out there looking for new stuff all the time. They’ll use any research tool that they can find, which creates an opportunity for people to go in, see what other people are listening to, check out their collection and listen to things they wouldn’t ever hear…The industry should have caught on years ago."

Hands-On Approach

Weinstein encourages his staff to point customers in new directions, and he sees this hands-on approach not only as akin to the curiosity-sating downloading process and essential to his store’s success, but as a luxury that most large chains can’t afford. Josh Madell, co-owner of New York City’s Other Music, which operates across the street from Tower Records’ prime Lower East Side location, agrees.

"When the staff has a little more time, they try to talk to customers a little bit more," Madell says. "We have a lot of interesting records in here, so when people come in to buy something we try to play them something else they might like. I can’t say it always works, and sometimes we are too busy. But with a real knowledgeable staff, and with a lot of staff on the floor, if people ask a question, there are people out there who can answer and then show them something else they might like. We sell a lot of stuff just because the staff likes it."

"For a long time, Tower was the best chain, and they had some of the best stores around," Madell says. "But in New York they’re definitely not the cool chain store anymore, and a lot of the people who shop here don’t want to shop in any of those chains. When you go in there, they definitely have the big hits on the big labels, but part of Tower’s problem is that they have a lot of competition."

That’s an understatement. In recent years, not only have records stores like Virgin and HMV proliferated, and Borders and Barnes & Noble expanded, but giant retailers such as Best Buy and Target have started swinging their weight around in the music world as well.

"The indie stores are also getting hit by Best Buy and Target," says Terry Currier, owner of Music Millennium in Portland, Ore. "But independent stores have a lot going on. For one, they’re usually within a single marketplace. They don’t have a bunch of stores in different marketplaces, and the owner/operator is usually involved on a daily basis, so they’re able to react to the marketplace."

[National chains] can’t fine-tune, because they’re too big and bulky," Currier says. "The national chains also depend on the hits, and a lot of the independent stores don’t depend on the hits, so that helps us a lot. When a new Bruce Springsteen comes out,, or a Britney Spears comes out, it will bring X number of people into your store. If you have a good store, chances are they’re going to buy something else too. But we don’t have to depend on those things. The clerks are adopting music that they like and turning people onto it. They’re not driven by radio."

Pricing is another major concern for both indie stores and consumers. With CD prices closing in on $20, major labels and retailers may be further distancing themselves from the very record buyers they need to stay in business. "The majors pushing prices up to $19 per CD is very hard for people to stomach," Other Music’s Madell says. "There are not that many people who can afford to shell out $70 for a couple of new records."

"We have huge areas of storage dedicated to $5-or-less CDs," says Amoeba’s Weinstein, who stocks more than 500,000 used CDs in his giant store. "I’m sure part of that goes to promote artists that would otherwise get no exposure. Personally, I have always been furious at the list prices of new records. It’s ridiculous. The industry has made it so that it can’t survive without giant hits. For a lot of reasons, technological and otherwise, it’s going to be hard for them to maintain that model, and I don’t see anyone working that hard to create another one. It seems like there are a lot of opportunities for someone to do it another way."

Working With The Big Boys

Currier laughs mischievously at how some indie retailers also have been able to turn the price wars of the big chains to their advantage. "A lot of indie stores have been going over to Best Buy and buying from them or their site, since they’re selling a lot of CDs for a few dollars under list price," he says, explaining one way indie stores can avoid the high prices major labels demand for big albums. "We were joking that we should give Best Buy distributor of the year award at NARM [National Association of Recording Merchandisers], because so many indie stores are taking advantage of them!"

"Pricing is very important, and it’s something that we live or die by," says Rick Wojcik of Dusty Groove in Chicago, which specializes in rare or obscure soul, funk, jazz and other catalog items. "We sell odd music that people are taking a chance on. They’ll pay $20 for something they’ve heard a million times on the radio that they just have to own, but if it’s kind of quirky or a fluke that caught their eyes in the store, it’s a lot harder to get them to part with $20."

"We haven’t really suffered any downturn, since we’re also not a traditional retailer; in that most of our business in online, so we have a pretty dynamic customer base that allows us to weather a lot of regular changes," Wojcik says. "We’re also kind of an odd store, in that we handle a lot of the business that falls between the cracks."

"That’s kind of how we’ve always figured ourselves," he says. "We’ve had to be tight in how we run things, focusing on the types and sorts of things, prices and products that the customers who aren’t finding that kind of stuff at the regular stores will find with us. I think on some level it might be more the luxury end of the business spectrum, in that we’re not selling the hits or anything like that. At the same time, we’re selling to the type of people who will probably buy music until they’ve spent their last penny. Maybe we’re tapped into much more of a die-hard group."

As far as Weinstein is concerned, all record buyers are die-hard groups, and that’s where the mainstream music industry has failed. "I’m at a loss to understand how all these supposedly creative [industry] people are unable to come up with exciting and creative alternatives where you’re talking about a product that is just pure soul," says an indignant Weinstein. "It’s the greatest product anyone could be involved with. I love selling music. It’s everyman’s art form. It’s available to everybody and can be made by anybody. It’s absurd that these jokers can’t figure out how to market it to me."

"We just didn’t do anything that special," Weinstein says of Amoeba’s success. "We put all these people who love music in one room, and we make it big enough so that we can do the subject justice. Luckily we started off with enough resources when we started our first store, and it’s just magically grown. We don’t have any industry displays in our store at all. We just put the music out there and we expect people to come in and figure it out to a great extent."

Giving Back to Customers

Actually, Weinstein does more than just that, regularly organizing in-store appearances by bands and artists that have proven so successful that even some local L.A. live venues have started to get concerned. But Weinstein views it as just another way to give back to customers, rewarding them for their regular patronage. "Our in-stores bring people in, but they actually slow down business," he says. "But we’re not out to make extra money off the in-stores. They add to the flavor."

Music Millennium’s Currier, who estimates he holds more than 250 in-stores each year, agrees wholeheartedly. "It helps expose a lot of artists," he says. "Half of those are local bands, or bands on the way up. When we did Sonic Youth, we pretty much had to shut down the store. We had it crammed with people, and it actually killed our business for two hours. That was our worst Thursday of the whole year, but we hope those people will remember us the next time around.

"Your customers are the reason that you stay in business, and if you don’t support them back you don’t fulfill that relationship," Currier says. "It is all about relationships. One of your loyal customers may cringe when they sneak into a Best Buy once in a while, but they’ll at least come back to your store if you’ve got a good relationship."

Weinstein, Currier, Madell and Wojcik all agree that the state of the music industry won’t improve until more labels and chain stores become more passionate about the music they push.

"There are literally hundreds of thousands of beautiful albums out there," Weinstein says. "Soulful pieces of art created by people who in many instances have worked their lives leading up to that one recording. These recordings are in the can, and in many cases just sitting around. There’s so much product, and no one’s touching it! It’s so bizarre. The merchandising that the Internet can provide: Why can’t you just click on every world music label, see what they have, and play a sample? The technology is here, but where is everybody? I’m mystified."

"We carry a million 45s," he says. "We don’t make any money off of them, but you can look at them all day. Just to be completely surrounded by the music and posters and things to remind you why you’re there, it’s inspiring. That’s what a record store is supposed to be, and small stores are capable of pulling that off. And those stores will do well. And those without the passion or the interest to make it exciting, those stores will find it harder to survive."