On Wed, 2003-12-17 at 23:48, Craig Lieske wrote:
One of the recent posts concerned Coltrane's "Love Supreme" solos being too much for a standard record store patron to take.
FWIW, the regular record did fine -- it was the live tracks on the bonus disk that freaked people. One funny thing: we have "Blue Train" in our playstock, and, since I've been playing it, two of the younger workers have gone nuts over it. A couple of weeks back, a customer came to the register with it, and I complimented him enthusiastically on his choice. He asked "What *is* it about this record? First the guy with the crew cut tells me that I have to get it, then the guy with the hat flips out when he sees that I have it in my hand, and now you're raving. Are you all in on some sort of weird commision thing?"
Most of the people in that room went and bought the record shortly thereafter. For most of them, A Love Supreme is probably the only true jazz record they will ever own.
I had something like that happen when I put "Jack Johnson" on (well, it was the completed tracks from it which were on the box, which I had bought that evening). People were literally dancing in the aisles, and three people bought the CD (even though I warned them that the single CD wasn't the remaster). The worst reactions that we've gotten have been to the new Rufus Wainwright album and the last Johnny Cash disc. Curiously, people have stopped complaining about the Cash, even when they don't know who it is or anything about him, and have been buying it in droves. I suspect that it would be our top seller of the year, outside of each week's official top 20, if we could have kept it consistently in stock. The new boxed set, which came out a few weeks ago, has been having an average shelf life of 0.83 seconds before purchase :-)
So if you are trying to come to grips with the ethical question of airing the Merzbox while grinding through your shift at Barnes & Noble or wherever you are working, I say, go for it, your public will appreciate you all that much more!
Actually, the Merzbox would probably blend well with our escalator and HVAC noise :-)