NY Indie Record Shop Continues To Reinvent Itself Online

from the other-music-indeed dept

Tue, Apr 22nd 2008 7:20pm — Mike Masnick

A little over a year ago, we wrote about the plans by the popular indie record shop in NYC, Other Music, and how it planned to adapt to the changing marketplace for music buying. The store recognized that it couldn't sit still and wait to be consumed like its former neighbor down the street, Tower Records. So it set up its own online download store, with DRM-free tracks for sale from indie acts. However, the real key to its business was in recognizing what the real benefit of a good indie record store has always been: the knowledge and recommendations from the staff (and having been to the Other Music physical store years back, I can attest to their knowledge and recommendations). Business Week has now checked in with the store's owners, who note that the new venture is still very much in its nascent stages, but that they're quite optimistic about where things are headed. "I feel like there's a lot of opportunity if you're willing to shake up your way of thinking, and approach things in different ways and experiment and take chances." Contrast this to what you heard from execs at Tower Records as it failed, or from the record label bosses who refuse to change.

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: changing market, online, recommendations, record store
Companies: other music

9 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

mike (profile), 22 Apr 2008 @ 9:43pm

Where is the URL?
How can an article in BusinessWeek and a blog post here both skip the url to store? www.othermusic.com
[ link to this | view in thread ]
zhenchyld, 22 Apr 2008 @ 11:58pm

lol good point. typo at the end of the story too, 'record label bosses who refuses [sic]'. somebody at techdirt must have a weed hangover from 4.20.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
cause mikes an idiot, as usual, 22 Apr 2008 @ 11:58pm

not only are there grammatical and presumably spelling errors "Contrast this to what you heard from execs at Tower Records as it failed or from the record label bosses who refuses to change." but the story fails to realize the "why" its b/c tower record execs are making at least high 6 figures, the indie record shop guy barely pays for his subscription to high times.

mike, as usual, quit
[ link to this | view in thread ]
SteveD, 23 Apr 2008 @ 4:40am

Indie is the future?
This is similar to a story in the UK of a while back regarding Rougth Trade; the label-turned-record store. In the gloom of a failing retail business the management had decided to expand by focusing on what they could offer their customers; a music service rather then just music sales. Staff that could talk to their customers and make recomendations, lessons for young artists and a corner for musicans to play in.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6903052.stm
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Mark Desmet, 23 Apr 2008 @ 5:22am

Other Music, Rough Trade, AGF Productions, PBE
As a fairly voracious music listener I can attest to all 4 of the above shops/labels as terrific sources for "obscure" stuff. In spite of the apparent spelling/grammar things noted above, the shops give fast service, and they know their field.
Small mobile, independent -- wins everytime.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
ThrashingRage, 23 Apr 2008 @ 6:07am

Right, like ANY person with a brain couldn't figure out what their URL might be eh?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
PaulT (profile), 23 Apr 2008 @ 6:28am

Re:
Erm... I think Tower Records failed because it stuck to the volume selling business model that stopped being viable around the year 2000. Besides, who works in a record store for a high salary? If that was the main issue, why aren't other chain stores in other industries gone, since no retail work is highly paid?

"mike, as usual, quit"

Troll, as usual, can't be bothered to identify himself or give any kind of coherent or logical answer to back up his "points". Also criticises someone on their grammar while refusing to use capital letters at the beginning of sentences.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
mike (profile), 23 Apr 2008 @ 7:02am

Re:
Sure it is easy to find, but an article about an online entity should at least be able to point you to that entity.

This store reminded me of Ameoba Music (amoeba.com)in LA. I don't know of there online experience, but in-store is cool. Astor Place in NYC has a lot of 2nd hand stores. I used to buy a lot there when I lived in NYC (~5yrs ago). The best was Mondo Kims (MondoKims.com).
[ link to this | view in thread ]
moe, 23 Apr 2008 @ 7:47am

Another local india shop
Baltimore has a great indie music shop, too, called The Sound Garden. It sounds like it has a lot in common with Other Music.

Check them out: http://www.cdjoint.com/
[ link to this | view in thread ]