Well, we don't have GC here in there UK, but a lot of music stores are disappearing. We now have one shop in my city when there used to be about 8.

We're focussed on guitars because we play guitars, but I'd lay good money that most musical instruments are selling poorly. In the age of instant gratification, a new generation is unwilling to put in the time to get results, when they can spend time being instantly fulfilled with something like a computer game.

I just don't think musical instruments are big enough business to support a chain store model anymore. If it ever did.

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Really, it's just a very poorly run company that has way way WAY over-extended itself in the last few decades in order to stay afloat. Titanic sized stores with too many employees doing too little real work, filled floor to ceiling with merchandise, much of it you can't even reach.

"You can't tell where you're going if you don't know where you've been"

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Last edited: Feb 02, 2024 13:11:23

My comments will address this from three different angles, so to speak.

1. The decline of the market.
2. The decline of brick and mortar.
3. The decline of content in music.

The decline of the market.

I've heard people say things such as: "there are fewer guitars being sold, but revenues are up because those guitars are more expensive." That is not good news. Frankly, I see it as just the opposite. An increasing share of a dwindling market is a blind alley. The best and the brightest will be the last to perish, but they will have little if any escape route available to them. The best buggy-whip maker in the Country still ended up out of business. If the market is declining, that is serious, serious bad news. No answers here, although my third point may offer some insights.

The decline of brick and mortar.

This is another intractable problem. It's not just happening with music, but it's happening in all sorts of businesses. Online sellers can undermine local businesses almost without effort. If I go to Walmart for a pair of pants, they may or may not have my size. Driving to Walmart costs money and time, so I only stop in when I'm in town buying groceries. I can pick through Walmart to see if they have my size, or I can open up my browser and buy it from Amazon.

If I go to the Mom & Pop music store looking for a red Strat, they can order one which may arrive in 2-4 weeks, or I can snag one from Amazon which will be at my house in 48 hours. It's damned hard to compete with that. The problem is, if it can shipped via UPS, Fed-Ex or the USPS, there are all sorts of people out there ready to take your business away.

While GC is not as vulnerable to this form of competition as the Mom & Pop stores, it's still suffering the same effects.

The decline of content in music.

There was a time when the radio in my vehicle was secondary in importance to only critical driveline and chassis components, such as the engine, steering or brakes. Nowadays, I literally cannot remember the last time I listened to broadcast radio. Why? Because there's so little worth listening to. I can hear the limited playlists of Classic Rock stations and usually end up bored by the repetition. I can listen to Country, which sounds so formulaic that I don't see much purpose in listening. The BBQ joint we visit after weekly band practice play contemporary hits which are even more formulaic than Country. Long before I'll put in the time to search out a station which plays something I will enjoy I will just hit shuffle on my iPhone and listen to an assortment of things I enjoy. One a recent road trip, I pulled up the Surf genre on my phone, and heard 9 hours of Surf music with virtually no repetition.

My mind isn't closed to new music, but I find little to like in most of the new material. So I listen to Surf (new and old), favored Classic Rock from my collection (with a much broader playlist than the local Classic Rock station) or Jazz. Give me something new and original and I'll listen. If I like it, I'll buy a copy, but it just isn't happening in the genre marketed to youth. If I hear one more processed vocal, I think I'll scream.

My point here is that if much of today's music is uninspiring, it probably has that effect of the youth of today, too. Hearing the opening lead line to The Beatles' I Feel Fine was exciting and made me want to pick up my guitar and learn to play it. A bunch of synths and processed vocals just aren't all that inspiring. For many players these days, having the right effects is more important than almost anything else.

Does this mean the death of GC, the retail music business, the recording industry, etc? Not necessarily, but I think that there are a lot of changes in the offing. Eventually, GC's business model will become obsolete, and that could be happening now. If so, they will either change or perish. With the debt-load they have, perishing is a real possibility.

My hope is that people will continue to produce content-rich music, and that someday, the masses will notice. I don't think we'll ever see a return to the American Graffiti days, when everyone was driving around town listening to the same AM station, but we might see common interests facilitated in other ways and perhaps the music consumer's voices will be heard once again, after all.

If the music industry ever abandons its formulas and allows the sort of creativity which happened in the sixties, perhaps then the market will turn around.

The artist formerly known as: Synchro

When Surf Guitar is outlawed only outlaws will play Surf Guitar.

Very well written, synchro.

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It's also worth noting that a significant portion of Guitar Center's debt did not occur naturally and has nothing to do with changes in the market or their crappy stores, but rather it was placed on the company by private equity firms during a series of sales. It is a fairly common practice in which the firms take loans to buy a company and then transfer the debt from those loans to the company they just bought after the purchase. This happened to Guitar Center twice within a five year period in the early to mid 2010s.

Four String Fender for The Delstroyers & The Woodhavens

da-ron wrote:

I'm not sure music stores can be run by corporate businessmen any more. We may be moving back to family stores, someone who cares what they sell. Mansons is a great guitar store. I bought my first Jazzmaster there, and I would estimate my friend has spent close to £6,000 there in the last few years, just on guitars.

A lot of large stores are failing here in the UK (Toys-R-Us in the US also) and there is the though that it's a good thing. These large stores that don't make a big enough profit, but soak up a lot of product. When they fail they make way for a leaner, more efficient business better adapted to customer needs. Jobs are lots, but jobs are generated too, as other businesses expand to fill the gap.

That's an interesting thought, and I hope you are right. I have two friends that are music retailers, one is selling guitars online only at this point and concentrating on sound reinforcement for his bread & butter. The other seems to be doing fairly well, but it's been a rocky road. He still carries new guitars, but I have the impression that his bread & butter is in used, quality gear.

I have never thought that music gear should be sold by big chains. It's always been a personal-service business and I believe that is when it is at its best. The small to medium sized store which adds value by providing excellent customer service. I use Amazon a lot, but will be the first to say that when an Amazon transaction goes poorly, it is really a hassle. Your chances of interacting with a human are essentially nil.

And, perhaps, that will be the achilles heel of Amazon, etc. They are in their growth phase now, but when that ends and they have to adapt their business model to revenues which are leveling off, they will find that their shotgun approach to customer service will no longer do the trick.

While I'm on this rant, I would like to bring up the subject of radio station chains. When stations were locally owned, things were a lot better. Perhaps iHeart Radio will not prevail in the long run and we'll go back to stations where the DJs have some input into the playlists, etc. That might do more for music than anything else I can think of.

The artist formerly known as: Synchro

When Surf Guitar is outlawed only outlaws will play Surf Guitar.

synchro wrote:

While I'm on this rant, I would like to bring up the subject of radio station chains. When stations were locally owned, things were a lot better. Perhaps iHeart Radio will not prevail in the long run and we'll go back to stations where the DJs have some input into the playlists, etc. That might do more for music than anything else I can think of.

we have a local, non profit, all volunteer radio station where i live with a 50 mile range. i schedule two full days of music each week, three other people split the rest. no commercials, special nightly programs and we play a mix of genres (mostly rock) covering the decades. people love us when they discover us. there is hope for radio.

www.surfintheeye.com

I will add, while keeping in my most corporations are evil...

Small business while made out to be victims of corporate overlords, are not innocent themselves for their woes. Many small businesses are run very poorly. Running a small business is hard, you have to work two to three times harder than you would need to in a regular job just to keep things afloat. There is so much behind the scenes work that things can wrong quickly and the razor thin margin disappears. Walk into a small business and you see waste everywhere, it's pretty insane. This happens in normal businesses as well, but small businesses can't afford waste.

JakeDobner wrote:

I will add, while keeping in my most corporations are evil...

Small business while made out to be victims of corporate overlords, are not innocent themselves for their woes. Many small businesses are run very poorly. Running a small business is hard, you have to work two to three times harder than you would need to in a regular job just to keep things afloat. There is so much behind the scenes work that things can wrong quickly and the razor thin margin disappears. Walk into a small business and you see waste everywhere, it's pretty insane. This happens in normal businesses as well, but small businesses can't afford waste.

Oh absolutely. In New Orleans we're currently experiencing a renaissance of record stores -- more than we had pre-Katrina. The thing is nearly all of them are less than 15 years old. Most of the older ones disappeared as the new ones popped up and it's hard to say they didn't deserve it: the new ones are businesses fighting for relevancy and viability in a small and crowded market. The old ones were shops. The owners show up every day hope somebody comes in and sells records, hope somebody comes in and buys records. Jim Russell Records had name recognition with everybody's mom and dad in the city, but the shopkeep would literally play xbox all day instead of maintaining inventory until they finally closed. Some have closed because it wasn't really a business, it was a guy with a lot of records not willing to invest in the taste of others. I certainly wouldn't say good riddance, but ya gotta run a business like a business.

Storm Surge of Reverb: Surf & Instro Radio