The photography department (with some other electronics stuff mixed in) extends the full length of the left wall of the store, with the "photolab" section (which isn't actually a photo lab, though perhaps it was for a short time when the store was new -- now it's home to the custom framing section and some other higher-end photography stuff) all the way in the back. The back room on the right, now home to kitchen appliances, was probably the computer section originally. In the foreground, I guess London Drugs is at least trying to keep up with current trends, judging by their vinyl records section! (Which feels weird for me to say, since I've never understood the modern-day love for old music formats.)
Hey, I just bought two new CDs this week! One is a 2023 new release! Of course, they are classical and CDs never really died out in terms of classical music as there are still a lot of classical music record, well, CD, collectors out there. I'm guessing London Drugs no longer sells classical CDs, but they did in 2018 when I was last in Canada so I wouldn't be shocked if they have a few laying around somewhere!
ReplyDeleteThis summer is the 40th anniversary of the debut of CD players in US stores and so, as you can guess it, I will be making a guest post about HHR about this in the next month or two. It'll just be a quick look back at how local Houston retailers were advertising CDs and CD players. I'm sure this will be an eagerly awaited post by everyone...lol, yeah right! That said, it was an exciting time 40 years ago and I want to do something for the anniversary. I kind of get the feeling that CD players never really died at London Drugs...at least these retro ones at least, lol.
I can definitely understand still liking CDs, but personally I only ever buy music digitally since I don't want to have to find somewhere in my small condo to store a bunch of CDs! I wouldn't be surprised at all if London Drugs still had CDs -- after all, even stores that aren't known for being stuck in the past still often have at least a small selection. CD players might be a little harder to come by here, but again, I wouldn't be surprised at all to see those!
DeleteI feel the same way - I have no idea why people have re-embraced records again (and modern records are so much more expensive than CDs too). I find vinyl records to be bulky, easy to break, and I can't play them in my car, so I'm perfectly happy sticking with CDs, even if owning a bunch of CDs makes me look more archaic these days than owning a bunch of vinyl!
ReplyDeleteYeah, sometimes technology from the past should stay in the past! My parents got a cheap record player a few years back to see if they could play some of the ones that they got way back before they went out of fashion and found them all to be damaged or warped, so they just gave up and decided to stick to CDs and digital music!
DeleteWell, I guess I'm in the minority here! When I'm bored, it can be fun to browse through antique stores or record stores to see what you may come across; it's almost like a hunt. I suppose I also like the nostalgia of records since I have good memories playing them when I was younger. It is also fascinating to watch the needle and have a more concrete sense of how the sound you are hearing is being produced. I can appreciate CDs as well, but I absolutely do not understand people who still like cassette tapes. On top of the fact that they degrade over time, it is a total pain to have to wind the tape back up if your player messes up and spits it out everywhere, on top of the fact that you have to guess where to hit play if you are looking for a particular song.
DeleteI understand not liking tapes (and I don't have any tapes or a player myself), but for me they're what's nostalgic -- we never had records when I was growing up, but we hung onto tapes for far longer than most people! My first portable music player was a cheap tape player (think Walkman knockoff), in the early 00s when most people would have been using MP3 players or at least portable CD players.
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