Retail Nostalgia

Sometimes, I can't help but reflect on those good old days of retail, where no one ever talked about adult stuff like "collective bargaining" and "health care." (More on those topics later.) I had two wonderful retail jobs in my life: Evergreen Park Grocery and Michigan Wherehouse Records. Evergreen Park Grocery is on the north side of Higgins Lake, and I spent the mid-to-late '80s (and even some early '90s) there as everything at one time or another: bottle bitch, gas monkey, deli douche, bakery gent, and ultimately behind the main counter, selling booze and condoms to the rich and poor alike.

But the bulk of the '90s were spent at Michigan Wherehouse Records, first in Mt. Pleasant and then in Ann Arbor for a few short months. Those were amazing times in record retail, especially in the early '90s, where a midnight sale by INXS (!) could draw crowds out the door. But as other pursuits took time and bucks away from music, the sales evaporated. And I can't find a better long-term snapshot of the boom and bust of music retail than here. There are even some sweet-ass charts, in case you hate to read.

Do I still pine for those days? Well, it was six years ago this week that Record World in Petoskey closed the doors forever, ending my long reign at music retail, so I would say that it still holds a piece of my heart. But you can't argue with the numbers, and it would be foolish to think that music retail, outside of niche markets, could ever be the cultural force it once was. But man, it rarely felt like a job, and that's something to cherish.

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