This record store in Chicago has a ‘do not buy’ list of albums to avoid at all costs. What would make yours? Let us know on NME.COM.
I don’t actually disagree with this list from a musical perspective, but I would like to point out that there’s a pretty disproportionate number of lady singers being singled out here. Be more subtle, record store dudes.
Also: what year is this? Somebody is very bitter about the 90’s, lol.
And although it could be nothing, that doesn’t mean I’m not side-eyeing the fuck out of k.d. lang and Melissa Etheridge being highlighted.
On the one hand, I’m guessing the context of this isn’t so much a music-snob jerkoff jamboree as it is the fact that used record stores tend to get a lot of the same artists/titles that they eventually get overloaded with and subsequently have a hard time selling because it’s both omnipresent and out-of-favor. (The mid-late ’90s had a sort of Unholy Trinity: Monster, Dookie and Cracked Rear View.) The prevalence of ’90s artists says a lot in that context — aging X’ers/Y’ers who tend to move a lot, need extra spending money and/or tend to go digital more readily have to constitute the vast majority of this glut, and when supply outweighs demand this sort of rule set tends to be handy. If this was posted in a used LP store in 1982 you’d best believe Herb Alpert and Vaughn Meader would be all over this.
That said, who gets to define “2nd tier hip-hop” or “anything Pitchforky”? Why the aforementioned suspicious highlighter usage? How are the Eagles on there twice? (I know it is every music snob’s sworn duty to hate the Eagles, but seriously.) And if you’re so inundated with Boz Scaggs and Macy Gray CDs, wouldn’t you have learned how to spell their names by now?
Honestly, I would be more interested to know what this particular store is buying and selling a lot of, because who is the demographic for used CDs in 2012?
