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aberdeen-music

Are record shops a thing of the past?


Project Van Shite

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and please call it 'JakeB assists'

I would, but looking to do it with a pal or two, so it would be unfair. Also, my last name doesn't start with a B, which might cause confusion.

Can you please start a "JakeBassist starts a business" thread and keep us all updated on your developments. I don't want to miss out on anything that happens with this.

There will be a proper thread in the news and announcements forums but I don't think the ball will be moving till spring/summer next year. Keep yer peepers peeping though.

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I still buy CDs for listening in the car, but most of my 'on the move' music is supplied by Spotify or 3G streaming of Soundcloud for bands without tunes on Spotify.

I used to like going into OneUp and buying a wad of music. I bought my first ever Sublime album in there and loved the band ever since. I also used to fund my underage drinking by selling old CDs I no longer listened to to the shop.

As has been mentioned several times in this thread, there's many reasons why OneUp will now be struggling - one that hasn't been mentioned and is a relevant one (in my opinion) is the changing of the music 'scene' - when I was 15 or so (11 years ago now), kids my age were into skateboarding and rollerblading (at least the ones I was friends with) and most of my weekends were spent skating round town, outside Queen Street police station to jump off the stairs and grind the banisters, and going into Elementz and OneUp. It was possible to buy an entire wardrobe from Elementz for me, and my entire music collection would've been bought from OneUp. I think I had an mini disc player at the time, so I would buy CDs and copy them onto mini disc to use when skating about.

Since then, Elementz has moved and from what I hear, is still doing really well - they have diversified into other markets as well, I noticed when going past they stock much more surfing gear than they ever did. They also sell more hip-hop based clothing, with brands like Sean John and Rocawear. They are no longer an exclusive skateboard/skating shop like they used to be, they sell a heap of other stuff to attract new crowds/new scenes/new people into their shop. OneUp doesn't seem to have diversified at all - it's the same set up it was 11 years ago. I've never been into vinyl so that's never appealed to me, but the feeling of being 15 and discovering all this new random music was great.

I don't see many skater 15 year olds wandering about Aberdeen now, it's all The Only Way is Essex and everything seems to be 'totes amazeballs'. There is no equivalent to 'nu-metal', what we had when we were kids. Kids now aren't into music as much as 11 years ago and the internet has completely fucked the indie record store.

Maybe we should just have an Empire Records-esque night, and save the shop. Now, who could we get to play on the roof?

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Read what I was saying again. When I was a kid, I remember the majority of the school I was at being well into music, be it hip hop, rock or dance. I don't see that nowadays with the kids of today. How many kids do you see hanging about Belmont Street or going to gigs now?

And how has the internet fucked the indie record store? I assume you're not seriously asking me for evidence of that?

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No not that, was just speaking about the kids part.

Do you still hang around schools? I hope not. How would you know if they're into music or not. Maybe Belmont Street just isn't the place to go for kids today. Maybe these days they don't make it so easy to identify what they liked as when half the teenagers in Aberdeen were wearing baggy jeans and a slipknot hoody.

Such a broad statement as kids aren't so into music these days just seems ridiculous.

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I didn't say kids weren't into music. Just doesn't seem they're into music as much as the kids of 10 years ago. Like I said in my previous post, if you'd actually reread what I was saying, you might get what I mean.

This is speculation, not fact.

Tastes change, so thank god "the kids" aren't going about listening to nu-metal on their mini discs and going to packed out King Prawn shows. I don't think that much of what you said has any relevance to the decline in record shops. I dare say that supermarkets using CD's as loss leaders and non tax paying internet outlets such as Amazon have had a much bigger role to play than the fact that Elementz has moved.

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I would, but looking to do it with a pal or two, so it would be unfair. Also, my last name doesn't start with a B, which might cause confusion.

There will be a proper thread in the news and announcements forums but I don't think the ball will be moving till spring/summer next year. Keep yer peepers peeping though.

I can't see One Up still going come Summer time.

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I don't see many skater 15 year olds wandering about Aberdeen now, it's all The Only Way is Essex and everything seems to be 'totes amazeballs'. There is no equivalent to 'nu-metal', what we had when we were kids. Kids now aren't into music as much as 11 years ago and the internet has completely fucked the indie record store.

It might have been because a lot of them had the sense to migrate to Transition when it opened up. There are heaps of kids there! All ages. I had an eight year old showing me and a few friends how to do some tricks when I was last down. Just because they don't dress according to the typical skater stereotype doesn't mean they don't skate. Booyah! Will probably offend you with this comment even though I'm not meaning to, nothing personal. :)

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This is speculation, not fact.

Tastes change, so thank god "the kids" aren't going about listening to nu-metal on their mini discs and going to packed out King Prawn shows. I don't think that much of what you said has any relevance to the decline in record shops. I dare say that supermarkets using CD's as loss leaders and non tax paying internet outlets such as Amazon have had a much bigger role to play than the fact that Elementz has moved.

The funny thing is Amazon genuinely didn't pay corporation tax for a while and I have no idea why. How the fuck they got away with it baffles me.

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This video is pretty apt to this discussion I think:

As Jan said, tastes change - Kids are just as into music as they ever have been, there's just a more sprawling/different definition of what that means nowadays. The issue isn't whether the appetite for consuming music has waned, it's more that certain ways of doing so (i.e. record stores) just aren't relevant anymore. MarkDrummer's point seems to be that the way his generation consumed music has died out.

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This video is pretty apt to this discussion I think:

As Jan said, tastes change - Kids are just as into music as they ever have been, there's just a more sprawling/different definition of what that means nowadays. The issue isn't whether the appetite for consuming music has waned, it's more that certain ways of doing so (i.e. record stores) just aren't relevant anymore. MarkDrummer's point seems to be that the way his generation consumed music has died out.

Exactly my point. The younger generation spend their time downloading music, as opposed to buying it from record shops. They hung about outside OneUp because that's where they bought their music from.

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