My Gen-X Files - The Record Store Hunt

            I rode my ten-speed down the highway.  I had the choice of two, maybe three stores to explore.  I am alone this time.  There were times I would go on the hunt with friends, usually to the alternative music haven closest to school, but it was rare that everyone in the party would have money to purchase.  That was crucial.  You had to have cash to spend, or the clerks would eventually corner you.  You needed a minimum of ten bucks.  I didn’t get ten bucks often, but sometimes I’d scrape enough to head out to the record store.

            The stores would be filled with records and tapes.  Tapes were the primary medium at the time, but there were still enough turntables floating around that made selling records viable.  If you knew anything about the business itself, you would know that it was a terrible industry with razor-thin profit margins.  One bad season of low sales was enough to put a record store out of business.  They would try to sell stickers and shirts and posters and other bullshit but wasn’t enough in the long run.

            There was usually a single clerk.  This was the summer, during the afternoon, and there would be one other wanderer in the store with me.  The clerk probably didn’t even acknowledge you.  I’d see the walls plastered with promotional cards for a bunch of shit I didn’t care about.  Madonna’s True Blue. Keith Sweat.  Ozzy Osbourne’s latest solo effort. Jody Watley, Debbie Gibson. Johnny Hates Jazz. Phil Collins, staring downward with his perfectly circular melon, just as surprised as the rest of his that he sold millions of albums.

 The truth is, at that time I didn’t know what I liked.  If you didn’t have money to throw at the record store or parents that collected records, you were at the mercy of the radio.  If that was true for you, then you were at the mercy of your local radio stations.  I lived in Central Florida.  They weren’t good.

            I liked rock. Classic rock. Some of the flashy glam rock of the 80s.  It was truly all I knew.  When they set movies and TV shows in the ’80s the soundtracks are always filled with The Smiths or some new-wave electronica, or a hidden gem like Kate Bush in Stranger Things. That shit wasn’t on your regular FM dial.  What we heard was bland, forgettable pop, or remnants of the Boomer generation invading our airspace.  Tina Turner, Bruce Springsteen, Steve Winwood.  There was no hip hop outside of New York on the radio.  No metal.  Nothing with any cursing or edginess or sexy stuff.  There also wasn’t a song in every commercial and TV soundtrack. You had the radio, your tapes, maybe MTV if you had cable and the occasional late-night DJ who spun ‘college rock’ on Sundays. 

            I wandered up and down the aisles.  I had a few ideas of what I wanted when I got there, but usually, that went out the window when I walked inside the store.  I only had ten bucks, and there was tax, so $8.99 was as high as I could go.  That meant something a little older, and new tapes were usually $9.99.  All I could do was pick up the cassette in the giant plastic cage they were trapped inside to prevent theft.  I could look at the cover, look at the back and see a track list, and then cross my fingers.  I couldn’t test it out, listen ahead, and make an informed decision.  That would have seemed absurd back then.  You could hear a single, watch a video, and maybe your local record store would play it on the speakers while you were there.  That was rare.

            A half an hour would pass.  I’d make a stop at Pink Floyd’s The Wall and marvel that it was a double-tape record for $21.99.  I’d eye a few sexy posters in the corner, flip through the t-shirt rack.  Maybe ten more minutes.  I already knew what I was going to buy, but that would mean I made my decision and I would have to ride my bike all the way home.

            Would I like Houses of the Holy?  The whole thing?  I think so. 

            $7.99 for an aging cassette that had never been properly remastered and sounded a little shitty.  Life is full of decisions and compromise.  I presented it to the clerk, he jammed a metal doohickey inside the plastic cage to free my cassette, then I was on my way.

            I had a big case with a clear lid that I kept my favorites in, and since I filled it a few months before, I had to shift everything down to put the new arrival in with the other Led Zeppelin tapes.  In order of release, of course. That tape went with you when you wanted to listen to it.  In a Walkman, in a car…well, that was pretty much it.  Most of your music listening was at home. 

            There is something to be said about the convenience of streaming music, and the availability of everything at your fingertips.  But I believe it meant more before all of that. At the very least, Gen-X, and previous generations, had a more intimate relationship with our music.