CD stores are doing at least one thing right...

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I don't know how widespread this is (I don't remember the last time I've been in a regular CD store -- I buy all my CDs online or at used CD shops), but I saw something interesting last night. In the CD section of a local Barnes and Noble, there's a little device which allows you to hear a snippet of nearly every album in the store. You put on some headphones, put the CD under the device (where it reads the CD's bar code), and then you can flip through the tracks with the device... Some of the devices have a touch-sensitive color screen which gives you the track listing, a picture of the album art, and the All Music Guide review (i.e. the reviews you see over at cdnow.com). Shortly before visiting the store, I had mentioned to a musician friend that we should get together for a "listening party"... Well, we didn't need to do that, as we were showing each other the CDs we wanted to show each other there in the store with these funky devices. The only downside to this system I saw is that not every CD was in there... I saw a Julian Lennon album released on an indie label in 1999 and thought, "Hmmm... I'd like to hear how that sounds..." but it wasn't in the database. Likewise, extremely new albums (like Brittney's newest) weren't in the database either. Still, I think this is a step in the right direction as far as the survival of CD stores goes. Now if they could only solve the problems of selection (like the ability to have hard-to-find titles burned for you there on the spot) and price (I'm still not gonna pay $19 for an hour's worth of music), I might actually buy stuff at the stores... Sorry if the CD listening device is something that's implemented everywhere around the world and I'm the last to know... It's the first time I've seen 'em, and they're pretty darn cool. :)

[inadequate.com]

Here in Oz I see a lot of shops with jukebox type arrangements for various genres. The advantage of this is that if you into dance then snippets could tend to consist of nothing but drum intros for scratching in. Sadly they rarely have a search song function so you got to sit thru the aforementioned intros, which can be time consuming. It also don't address your concerns re selection. On the positive, record companies have to do all they can to help the consumer make informed decisions about what music they buy if they hope to stop all the burning & taping and this idea will help that end. When I think about it there's only one shop I know of here that doesn't let you listen at leisure to any record you choose. In fact most shops I use tend to try to remember my face & taste and have a range of suggestions when I show up. Surely that is just good business practice. I would have thought that was standard practice worldwide. Peace