Laurie’s Planet of Sound, a used record store in Chicago, has leaked its do-not-buy list.
It includes the Spin Doctors, 10,000 Maniacs, Joan Osbourne, Alanis Morrisette and Sting and pretty much every other singer or band you thought was cool in the ’80s and ’90s.
“The Do Not Never Ever Buy List” isn’t “a list of music we don’t like,” Laurie’s says on its Facebook page. It’s “ just stuff that we watch molecularly break-down on the shelves due to lack of interest.”
In other words, it’s a list of music nobody likes.
OK, that isn’t fair.
Someone likes it, or they did, once. That’s why there are so many copies of the Spin Doctors’ Pocket Full of Kryptonite out there.
You have to remember that 21 years ago you couldn’t download “Little Miss Can’t Be Wrong” or “Two Princes” from Amazon or iTunes, because there was no Amazon or iTunes. If you wanted the singles, you bought the album.
Pocket Full of Kryptonite (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Pocket Full of Kryptonite was huge. According to the RIAA, it sold upwards of 5 million copies. Quintuple platinum. So, when people got tired of listening to “Little Miss Can’t Be Wrong” and “Two Princes,” the supply of used CDs pretty quickly outweighed the demand.
Laurie’s doesn’t want any more Spin Doctors CDs because it doesn’t think it can sell them. It isn’t personal. It’s business.
If you’re like me, you have spent a small fortune over the years on music. Used to, I’d cull the ones I didn’t listen to anymore and sell them or trade them in, but a few years ago, the used record stores stopped buying. I understood why, but it still stings a little to think my CD collection is literally worthless, even to me. The music itself is still worth something, but it’s all on a hard drive.
I’ve ripped my entire CD collection into various computers three times now. Each time, something conspired to make the hard drive go blooey. I have a good backup regimen now, but I still can’t bring myself to do one more rip through the discs. So I still play them the old-fashioned way.
I dig. As Great White once so wisely said, “Once bitten, twice shy.” I’m just the opposite. I can’t remember the last time I played a physical CD. (I keep one backup of my music and photos at home and work at work.)
Natalie Merchant CD’s should gather dust. I shall never forget the little hair spin thing she did singing “Hey Jack Keroac I think of your Mother” on SNL. Like when the music needed a few beats to develop the song, highlighting the band behind her, she had to do this hair spin thing back and forth with her head to make sure no one stopped looking at her. She thought she was pretty cool.
On the other hand I cannot hear Joan Osborne without getting a chill in my spine. I mean really, what if God was one of us?
It just occurred to me that you probably didnt write this post to get a truck load of music commentary from a wanna be Rolling Stone writer. So I will stop there and go no further.
Yeah, if we’re honest with ourselves, most of these CDs should be gathering dust, which is another reason I’ve pretty much stopped buying CDs. I’d buy a CD, listen to it once, listen to a few songs a bunch of times … and then hardly play it again.
Somehow Jimmy Buffett has become a regular in the Subaru’s 6 bays. It’s like a 4 minute vacation everytime I listen to the guy. That and classical and flamenco guitar, which is timeless.
call me old fashioned, i just traded in my 96 bmw last week that had a tape deck! that i still used. of course it had a cd changer too, and that got installed in to the new car. It will be a while before i trust my entire collection on some small fragile integrated circuit and memory chips. yup its cds for me.
I kind of think of CDs as backups for my MP3s, which is weird for a guy who used to collect vinyl.
I often wondered if there were such lists. Some stores seem loaded with tons of stuff destined to sit there forever. Journey (for example) has reached the tipping point where their audience has all they want and there are no new fans coming in.
“Don’t Stop Believing’” was on Glee, so the kids know that one and like it, but it’s a 99 cent download. No need to spend 2 or 3 times that on a CD with filler like “Open Arms” and … holy cow, that’s the only other Journey song I remember. Weird.
Just went to a used record shop. They were swamped with Sting CDs.
They could have called this the “What Were We Thinking List,” because I really don’t know what I was thinking when I bought those Sting CDs back in the ’90s.
I have 3 of those CDs…plus one cassette. Well, I used to have one cassette.
Cassettes: Now THERE was a good investment!
Are you old enough to remember buying 45′s with side A and side B? Side A was the song you really wanted, and most of the time, side B was some loser song that no one ever wanted to hear, and most of the time nobody played. But every now and then, the B side turned out to be a gem.
This is true. Springsteen’s Pink Cadillac was a B side.
I happen to be a Spin Doctors fan and know all the words and dance moves to Tommy K.
I’ve been warned about people like you!
With the exception of Bonnie Raitt, I agree with every single one of their banned bands. I could go my entire life without ever hearing John Cougar, John Cougar Mellencamp or John Mellencamp again. He is on my “play it and die” list along with Fine Young Cannibals, Alanis Morissette and 10,000 Maniacs.
Just wanted to let you know that I linked to this post on a post for Hey Dullblog (a Beatles group blog). The item about buying no albums from 60s/70s artists released in the 80s or later suggested a post to me — thanks for this post!
Sorry, forgot link: http://heydullblog.blogspot.com/2013/01/solo-beatles-good-stuff-from-this.html