By the time you read this Home of the Hits will have closed forever. Today, on its last day open for business, I went in to see what was left over. Considering how it used to look--walls covered in tee-shirts and bins overflowing with CDs--the place had pretty much been picked clean. While some of the remnants were surprising (a couple good U2 albums on vinyl) most was useless (Dashboard Depressional). I and a dozen other crate-diggers worked through the remaining detritus. During the afternoon the owner was selling six used CDs for $10.
[I prefer syrup!]
Here is where I bought my first Pavement album for $1 (a radio promo with a messed up tracklisting, which I thought was mighty cool). When I started collecting Bikini Kill's discography, this was the only store in WNY that sold their albums. I once bought a Blur double-album import there for $20 off. Way back when I worked the 3AM DJ shift at WBNY, I decided to celebrate the end of the semester by picking up some Limited Edition pressing from a group I'd read about called Sleater-Kinney. That decision led to the loss of several hundred dollars, a weekend in Cleveland, and three days worth of lunches (from food poisoning) after fanatically following the band during a snowstorm in Fredonia.
[nearly bare]
But today I spent only six dollars: two for the Eyes Adrift album (members of Nirvana, Sublime, and the Meat Puppets that only sold 20,000 copies), two for DJ Hurricane's The Hurra (his first solo work outside of the Beastie Boys), and two for an extremely out-of-print copy of Heavens To Betsy's Complicated (there's that S-K link). I know you don't care.
[ancient Pepsi-Cola machine]
Since Home of the Hits is closing I think it's a good time to give up CDs. Sorry everybody. Ask anyone and they'll tell you of my notorious reputation when it comes to CD shopping. But now that it's 2007, what's the point? I have a hundred albums on my computer that I haven't heard yet. Portable .mp3 players make CDs seem like an inconvenience and Amazon and iTunes removed the thrill of the hunt. Aside from Radiohead's next release I can't see a reason to buy another disc ever again.
[Half of my 1600+ CD collection. I haven't yet counted the records in the next room.]
Kind of sad when you think about it. How much have I spent?
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