To close out our Captured Tracks spotlight, founder Mike Sniper laments The Death of “Blind Buying.”
Ten-year-old Mike Sniper wandered around his local mall record store in suburban New Jersey, not knowing that one day he would own independent label Captured Tracks. Buying albums based on covers, young Sniper shaped his eclectic and varied taste today. Present-day Sniper wonders how instantly-accessible music will shape the music of tomorrow.
Sniper also fronts the band Blank Dogs and owns the Co-Op 87 record store in Brooklyn.
I think way too much focus has been attended to the “end of vinyl” (which isn’t true, I hope we all realize by now) and the “death of the record store.” (I think it’s the death of the bad record store, while good ones are thriving, but that’s a different story…) Not enough attention has been spent on HOW people discover and listen to music.
When I was first getting into music (beyond Van Halen and Prince and everything on the radio, so let’s say when I was ten, in 1987), I had to either find a friend who had a copy or track it down and buy it. I grew up in suburban NJ, so it wasn’t a cultural wasteland, but it wasn’t an urban area with tons of record stores either.
I did a lot of my purchasing on whims at my local chain store in the mall (which went from being an Alwilk to a Camelot, to a Blockbuster, to shutting down). This was pre-Nirvana, so there was confused labeling of any independent music. In this store, the section was called “Skate/Surf/Punk,” which is hilarious considering this is the section where you’d buy Sugarcubes, Faith No More and Dead Kennedys. Some other places called it “College Rock.”
Anyway, the first purchase I distinctly remember is buying The Cure’s The Top. The only reason I bought a Cure record was because they had the most albums, and to a ten-year-old novice brain, this meant they must be the best. When I first heard “Shake Dog Shake,” I absolutely hated it. I thought it was the worst thing ever. But, since I had very few albums in my collection at that point and was the only ten year old in Toms River, NJ that had it, I listened to it over and over until it stuck with me.
This, of course, led to a quick devouring of all things new wave, punk, SKATE. COLLEGE OR SURF. Not everything I got was great, but I would try almost anything. Cut out bins were the source of a lot of my favorite records that I still have to this day.
This brings me to my point, if I even have one. How much of my taste was shaped by these blind decisions? If I just streamed it, made a quick decision and then moved on, what would I like? I used to dream of the current situation, where anyone can listen to something free of charge, make their own opinion and then purchase it (or not). The problem is, I never took into consideration that not all music is immediately rewarding, or even palatable.
I think a lot of new music is unjustly championed or torn apart before a real judgement of its quality can be made. That judgement used to be based on making a purchase of hard earned money, so you really sunk your teeth into it before making your honest decision. There’s no going back to those days, but it’s sad to think it’s unlikely a kid will wander into a record store and buy Black Flag’s Damaged because it looks cool and not know entirely what he’s getting himself into.
I used to hate the idea of the “educated critic” and that their opinions had more value over subjective things like music. But I’m quickly realizing we are now in a world inundated with ill-informed music journalists and bloggers making knee-jerk reactions quickly so they have the first word.
Most music websites are new-content-based and are just pasting SoundCloud links with unceremonious one-line reviews. These are typically done by the newest people who work there, and quite possibly the people who are the least informed on where this music comes from. As a label, we’re a part of this world, and I’m not saying we’re uninvolved, so it’s a bit silly of me to criticize. I also don’t think there’s any turning back, and I accept it for better or worse.
But I wonder how much the actual music will change in the near future if it’s based on such quick judgement and criticism. It’s kind of scary to think about.
