Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Where to buy cd's in Tonbridge?...
Where the heck can you buy a cd from in Tonbridge these days? You remember them; they are the small circular plastic things which came before ipods! How about Woolworth's? We all know what happened to them. Bionic Records on Botany? Nope they closed about two years ago. Alright then good old WH Smith's? Them neither as it seems they have now stopped stocking them altogether. So where then? Well, apart from a patheticly small top forty-type display in Sainsbury's, absolutely nowhere. Certainly nowhere where you can find decent selection of records other than the charts stuff. I tried to buy a couple the other day and quickly realised that I'd have to make a journey to Tunbridge Wells since they have both an independent record shop, Ape Records, and also HMV megastore in the Victoria Place shopping centre. But should the people of Tonbridge have to go to TWells just to buy a cd? Shouldn't we be able to buy these fairly basic items right here in our own town? Actually, it gets worse because, to finish the story, I couldn't get any of my selection in TWells either. They said that I could order them and I said I don't come to TWells that often and not to worry about it. By now of course I'd already hatched a plan for where to obtain them. I could just save myself the bother of shopping altogether and just download them onto my ipod touch which I bought quite recently but actually, call me old fashioned, I do still like to have something tangible for my money instead of just a track listing on a screen which could crash and be lost at any time. (At least that's my fear!) Anyway it's just as easy, once you have the cd, to rip it on to i-Tunes and then I've still got the cd to play in the car and on my stereo at home. So then there's good old Amazon. I hate doing it but they've surely become the biggest trusted brand in the whole world; they seem to have everything and indeed they had all three of the cd's I wanted with free delivery. Total cost was around £18 which, by the way, would have cost me £32 if I could have found them in HMV (plus the cost of the wasted trip.) I'd still rather buy them locally if I can but it does make you think doesn't it. That said don't go buying all your books there will you!...
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9 comments:
How about branching out into selling cd's then, TB?
btw. Why did Bionic Records close? Was it high rents, or had they just had enough?
Does anyone buys CD's anymore?
Most of our friends read or listen on-line. This is what we are all into now.
GB & America
ABEL DANGER VISITS LONDON
http://www.ukcolumn.org/articles/abel-danger-visits-london
Anon: well yes because I do for one; otherwise I wouldn't have thought it a subject worth spouting on about! Loads of people still think it's good to have something tangible. An i-Tunes voucher for Christmas to down load a record just isn't quite the same is it?
PB: Bionic Records has gone, it has ceased to be... although it's not quite pushing up daisies! They closed about two years when the lease ran out. The couple who ran it decided not to continue having the millstone of being tied to a shop(we both know that feeling!) although they continue to trade at record fairs and online and hold their own regular fairs at the Rose and Crown and other venues.
Anonymous, I buy cd's. Like TB, I would rather have something tangible, that I can listen to in the car, or on my stereo system, rather than some ethereal download on an MP3 player, that could easily get lost.
I also read book - proper paper and ink books, and not some airy-fairy Kindle virtual book.
I am sure there are still countless thousands, like myself who prefer the REAL thing, rather than something that only exists in cyberspace!
Mind you once upon a time clay tablets would have been the real thing! I'm no Luddite and think that they can all sit happily together. Only trouble is you won't be able to actually buy cd's for very much longer. How long before they force the market in the same way for books?
Take you own backup copy of your itunes library and you can have the best of both worlds.
Why not just plug your MP3 player into your stereo system and even use a FM transmitter if your car radio has no connection?
Electronic book readers are getting cheaper, this could be the xmas when they take off. Very handy for travelling and they are getting very book-like to read with the bonus of variable font size.
I like to have the actual CDs but I increasingly find that physical shops don't tend to stock the stuff I want.
Amazon, or any other CD site is, for me, the only way to get the music I want to hear at a reasonable price. The older or more obscure music tends to sell for a sky high price in somewhere like HMV if you can find it at all.
I used to like Bionic Records when they still bought used CDs and records.
I went to Tunbridge Wells today and was a little sad to find that Ape has now shut up shop as well, leaving just HMV to monopolise the market again.
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