Online CDs: Amazon is the major seller, with something like 20% of the entire USA music retail business, both digital and CD, online and in stores. I don't know a good general-purpose alternative to Amazon. www.tower.com, which was another online business which bought the Tower Records website, is still out there. For used CD sales online, I don't have an alternative to Amazon marketplace sellers. For imports, I usually end up going to amazon.co.uk, amazon.fr, and amazon.de.
Online alternatives to Amazon are generally aimed at niche genres. For your bluegrass interests, look at County Sales (www.countysales.com). There's also Elderly Instruments up in Lansing, though their CD stock is down to about 5% of what it was around the peak of the market 14 years ago, and they are mostly concentrating on new releases. (www.elderly.com) Other sites I use: Arkiv Music for classical, Music Scotland and Coda Music for UK folk, CD Roots for world music-y things, Bandcamp for artists who are releasing their own CDs. There's a music store in Poland I have bought some folk downloads from, but I doubt that would interest you.
Ann Arbor brick-and-mortar CD stores: For used CDs, for most interests, Encore is the best, a world-class used CD shop. Wazoo has a few things, and PJ's is oriented towards vinyl and I haven't been there in many years. Wazoo sells some new CDs and may be willing to do orders.
Unless you are interested in the extremely trendy and hip music sold by Underground Sounds on Liberty, there is little available in new CD retail in Ann Arbor. (I don't know what Underground Sounds would do with special orders.) Barnes & Noble carries an ever-shrinking selection of hits and a sad little section of classical/jazz/folk/etc. I don't know what B&N might be willing to order. Best Buy's selection might be a little bigger in pop genres but Best Buy has no meaningful stock outside of pop. Probably the main place I see new CDs for sale in Ann Arbor is Whole Foods.
The closest old-fashioned, all-genre CD store to Ann Arbor is Dearborn Music, about 40 miles away.
The graphic on this article shows the rise and fall of CD sales and explains why there aren't better CD shopping choices in 2014.
I still prefer to buy CDs, because they sound better. However, we are flat out of storage space for them, and I am also having problems with losing them Also, for British Isles folk imports, MP3 albums usually cost roughly 1/3 as much as import CDs. On the other hand, my iPod is full, so everytime I want to add some albums, I have to delete some albums. Poot.
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Date: 2014-09-05 03:21 pm (UTC)Online alternatives to Amazon are generally aimed at niche genres. For your bluegrass interests, look at County Sales (www.countysales.com). There's also Elderly Instruments up in Lansing, though their CD stock is down to about 5% of what it was around the peak of the market 14 years ago, and they are mostly concentrating on new releases. (www.elderly.com) Other sites I use: Arkiv Music for classical, Music Scotland and Coda Music for UK folk, CD Roots for world music-y things, Bandcamp for artists who are releasing their own CDs. There's a music store in Poland I have bought some folk downloads from, but I doubt that would interest you.
Ann Arbor brick-and-mortar CD stores: For used CDs, for most interests, Encore is the best, a world-class used CD shop. Wazoo has a few things, and PJ's is oriented towards vinyl and I haven't been there in many years. Wazoo sells some new CDs and may be willing to do orders.
Unless you are interested in the extremely trendy and hip music sold by Underground Sounds on Liberty, there is little available in new CD retail in Ann Arbor. (I don't know what Underground Sounds would do with special orders.) Barnes & Noble carries an ever-shrinking selection of hits and a sad little section of classical/jazz/folk/etc. I don't know what B&N might be willing to order. Best Buy's selection might be a little bigger in pop genres but Best Buy has no meaningful stock outside of pop. Probably the main place I see new CDs for sale in Ann Arbor is Whole Foods.
The closest old-fashioned, all-genre CD store to Ann Arbor is Dearborn Music, about 40 miles away.
The graphic on this article shows the rise and fall of CD sales and explains why there aren't better CD shopping choices in 2014.
http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/permalink/2014/08/26/music-industry-1973-2013
I still prefer to buy CDs, because they sound better. However, we are flat out of storage space for them, and I am also having problems with losing them Also, for British Isles folk imports, MP3 albums usually cost roughly 1/3 as much as import CDs. On the other hand, my iPod is full, so everytime I want to add some albums, I have to delete some albums. Poot.