“What came first, the music or the misery?” John Cusack asked the camera as embittered and lovelorn record storeowner Rob in the ever-endearing 2000 film High Fidelity (not to be confused with my colleague’s column). With a monologue like that, you’d think that music retail lends itself fairly well to interesting dialogue and a solid narrative. I am here to tell you that, believe it or not, the Empire Records of the world are gone—and with them the pretentious babble about why my record collection is more interesting than yours.
Over the summer, and for two years before coming to Georgetown, I worked at a small music and entertainment store a few blocks away from where I lived. We sold albums, DVDs, and all those 8- and 16-bit video game systems that drew a crowd of people who missed seeing their world a little more pixelated. Still, it’s primarily a music store, and I planned for my 16-year-old expertise on obscure musical selections to be put to good use with my employment there.
Which brings me to my first point: Music taste is undeniably subjective; but there is something about the human mind that adores forcing some form of elitism into everything we do. So, yes, I will hand you the “new Green Day” CD, little boy. And, yes, I would like to make fun of you for it, like all of my predecessors in all those famous films about life in a record store would have done. But wait! This is retail, which means the company that employs me wants to make money, because I live in America, and capitalism directs us. So what do I do? I give the kid the CD, smile, ring him out, and then I tell him to have a nice day.
When customers come in with their very precise demands, you have to fulfill them—even if they’re looking for Stevie Wonder’s “I Just Called to Say I Love You.” When they ask you to grab the ladder and reach for excessively high objects, and walk out having shown no interest in buying that object, you place it back in its rightful place and ask anyone else if they need assistance. And when elderly men call you ignorant for liking rock and roll instead of solely devoting yourself to big band swing, you cope.
What happened when high maintenance customers emptied out of my musical emporium? In the movies, employees then get to talk about their love lives, struggles, problems, whine, whine, blah-di-blah, and whine, all as a means to further the plot. Sadly, there is no screenwriter attempting to make my life more interesting. This means when the store traffic dies down, I get to put away dozens and dozens of new CD stock, day after day. While I would rather be chatting up Liv Tyler or discussing the best songs of all time, I instead get to restock the towering walls of compact discs that stand before me, all conveniently packed too full for me to place one more copy of Tha Carter III among them.
A day in the life of a record store employee: strenuous lifting and discussing things that you personally don’t enjoy with people who have a weird smell permeating from their layered clothing—all while listening to music that in no way fits the standards of musical elitism, as defined by yourself and your co-workers.
High Fidelity, meet Low Fidelity.
Stack James’s discs at jmcgrory@thegeorgetownvoice.com
