How many style divisions (and which ones) should there be in a record store?

Specific genre labelling, that is.

Those who have "their own" genres need to discover the records that are usually put in the "pop/rock" department. Why? Because they are superior, simply...

Trying to be exact is always gonna have stuff fall between the gaps but there's no particular reason to file the Judas Priest discs with the Serge Gainsbourg ones.

* New Arrivals (Used)
* Pop/Rock
* Soul/Hip-hop/R&B
* House/techno/IDM/Ambient
* Jazz/Improv
* Krautrock/Psychedelic
* Avant-Garde/Noise
* International

You're absolutely right, a good record store will have its own metal section (I don't buy metal).

You're absolutely right, a good record store will have its own metal
section (I don't buy metal).

-- Mark (mar...) (webmail), March 13th, 2003 12:29 PM. (later) (MarkR) (link)

There's some really great metal out there (and I'm not just talking about "Indie-acceptable" metal [Cave-In, Converge, Isis, etc] ). It's just so hard to penetrate from the outside.

hmm... Indie acceptable metal... can we have genre name for that? Electroclash = Indie acceptable dance music.

Pop/Rock
Soul/Hiphop/R&B
Electronic
Classical
Goth/Darkwave/Industrial
Punk/Hardcore
Metal
Jazz
Reggae
Soundtracks

With any genre classification you'll get problems. Is St Germain "electronic" or "jazz"? Is Machine Head "hardcore" or "metal"? Are The Streets "pop", "hiphop" or "electronic"?

siegbran i have never seen a record store with a 'goth section'! erm 'industrial' maybe but i've never just seen the word 'GOTH' and then a bunch of albums. they do things a bit differently in the netherlands, i'm guessing?

If you are just looking for something in a particular genre, then ask the people behind the desk. If they cannot help you, then walk straight home, and go into www.allmusic.com before you return to the shop, knowing which artists to listen to (using Kazaa or WinMX, you may even do the listening at home).

Hey, I used to work at Plan 9 in Charlottesville for a couple of years. I thought it was really weird that amid all the categories, we only a had new soul and old soul but no r&b /rap or hip hop. We repeatedly had to answer questions about where the new Ludacris or Dre was and I always had to answer "Uhhhh, in the 'new soul' section." They remodeled recently and hopefully they got rid of those stupid new soul signs.

Rock/ pop
Folk
Jazz
Classical
Bluegrass
Rap/ Hip hop
Soul
Vocalists
Soundtracks

I think that's all you really need. That's why you have shop clerks. To help you find things if you don't know the alphabet. Which there are more and more of those people everyday.

(1)People behind the desk (assuming there even is one and not just a checkout line) may not know jack shit about what you want
(2)Not everyone is privileged enough to have internet access, and even then it would be a pain to look up AMG, go back to the store, find out they don't have it, go back on AMG, go back to the store, etc.

1) Stuff that makes you wanna dance.
2) Stuff that makes you wanna sing along.
3) Stuff that makes you wanna play air guitar.
4) Stuff that makes you wanna play air drums.
5) Stuff that makes you wanna play air trumpet/clarinet.
6) Stuff that makes you wanna conduct the orchestra.
7) Barry Manilow.

Plan 9 has a bit of an identity problem -- they want to be comprehensive like an Amoeba, but they don't have nearly enough space (or enough local people to buy obscure releases.) The vinyl in the basement more than carries it, though.

upstairs near the registers - bargain, sale, boxsets, posters

downstairs -

front to back, left isle:
videos, used rock cds (alphabetical with a new arrivals section in the beginning)
black metal (just black metal, not straight metal or even death metal, just black metal?)
i-rock (european kraut and prog - magma, international harvester - weirdly Can and NEU! are in the rock section and Faust is in the Experimental section)
j-rock (japanese rock & prog - boredoms, ruins, et al - other japanese noise artists like merzbow and ground zero are in the experimental section)
j-pop (actual pop music from japan, not stuff like cornelius or kahimie kari [sp?])
electronica (broken up into electronica used, electronica new, house and vinyl all broken up into those categories)
experimental (everything from zorn projects, improv groups that are really not jazz, noise, more obscure prog like univers zero, fred frith, henry cow, this heat, glitch, early industrial noise like einsturzende neubaten, throbbing gristle, 23 skidoo, etc)
spoken word
soundtracks - cds and vinyl
and along the far left side and all the way at the back are dvds.

middle row, front to back:
indie rock vinyl
regular rock and pop vinyl
new rock and pop cds
oldies (anything from garage, psych, and other stuff from the 60s that isn't popular enough to go in the regular rock and pop sections)
lounge core (that's really what they call it)
comedy
soul - used, new and vinyl
hip hop - used, new and vinyl

right row, front to back:
cetic
country
folk
european pop (separated by country)
african, with a separate north african section
indian
brazilian
latin (i don't know much latin music, so not sure how they separate all this stuff)
reggae
and more hip hop

far right wall i think is blues and zydeco, but i don't know

you thought this was too much. SHIT!! there's still a whole other room broken up into classical, experimental classical, new age, jazz vinyl, used jazz and new jazz

whew!, i'm tired just thinking about it all.

1. Classicaa
2. Vinyl
3. Everything else

I'm so goddamn sick of walking into a record store and thinking "Should that be under 'rap/hip-hop' or 'R&B' or 'pop/rock'?"

1. sale
2. secondhand
3. the rest

That must surely be enough!

The middle aisle also has Lounge/Exotica across from the oldies and a really small dance/disco section at the end of Soul.

And Rockabilly begins the last row with Celtic after Folk and then there are like six zillion different sections for practically each African and European and most Latin and South American and Asian countries.

And the entire right wall is Blues and then Cajun (and possibly something else.

The sad thing is I know THAT I have forgotten something.

Amoeba really has too many sections. So many in fact that employees regularly misfile stuff which is really a shame when you are looking for something which they "claim" to have.

I made a big mistake when I was working at WESU. Consumed my own power as program director and probably a bit impressed with myself for being the resident folk/blues/country/etc. knowitall, I divided those musics into discrete sections by subgenre. So Woody Guthrie went under "folk revival," others under "old time," then of course "early country," "postwar country," etc. I really regret doing this and my remorse is only mitigated by the knowledge that probably within six months the whole system was utterly wrecked by slovenly DJs.

if in addition to 'in/out/then' and 'la decadanse' and they start having categories like 'history/society/memory' or 'body/identity' or 'transference' i will never shop there again -- my confusion circuits are overloaded as is

International Rock/Pop
Gothic/Industrial
Classic Metal/Hard Rock
Metal/Grunge/Fusion
Punk/Hardcore
Dance music - New trends
House/Trance/Techno
Indie
Oldies
Teen pop
Soundtracks
Jazz (w/ subdivisions, I'm not familiar with it)
Classical (same as above)
Ethnical (same as above, includes celtic, indian, african, etc.)

Experimental music is hard to find (though it can be found occasionally between Indie and some Jazz shelves).

Oh yeah, if you have to use those big CD theft protection devices, leave enough space in the bins so you can flip through the titles.

-Alan

hip hop-99
100-130
130-150
150-happy hardcore

and then a section for rock music

These two might as well be just one. Unless you are a sucker for drum solos. :-)

that's my kind of store.

Most maddening categories ever - Kim's

1) Filk
2) Movie Soundtracks
3) Everything Else

I HAVE THE "WHALES ALIVE" LEONARD NIMOY LP.

The MVE in Camden used to have a "Great Sleeve, Shame About The Record" section.

Hmmm. Suddenly reminded me of a certain "Not The Nine O'Clock News" classic. :-)

nb: I've long-wondered why, if record shops have to classify, they insist on putting each artist in only one category. Even if they're low on numbers, might it not make sense to have little cards to cross-classify? So that a Michelle Shocked fan who knows her from the trilogy can aee she has a new album when looking in Rock & Pop, but dub fans who might be prepared to experiment notice her latest, by including it in the Dub section too?

Then you can have as many damn sections as you like! As it is, most folk acts who sell more than a few records find themselves 'promoted' to Rock & Pop in English high-street shops, leaving the Folk section the preserve only of afficianados. And so browsing is impeded, not encouraged.

This would also stop the absurdity of artists with diverse albums being pegged as only one category. Sure, include The New Folk Sound of Terry Callier in Soul/R&B if you must (fans of the Cadet stuff might like it), but why is it not in Folk as well?

Brings to mind Nina Simone's anger at being called a Jazz artist.

lps

8) Things that make you go "Hmmm...."