The record store ritual – You feel like buying a new CD or two so you go to your nearest record store. But there is something you must do before you can browse for new music. You walk into the store and look along the Rock/Pop sections of CDs. Youre looking for the letter P. More importantly youre looking for the Prince section, even though you know there is nothing new. You have all his CD's and most of his CDs wont be on the shelves anymore anyway... but still you go and look! JUST IN CASE... Maybe, just maybe... So you find Prince’s section, a whole lot smaller than it used to be, and begin to finger through the CD cases - SOT (so cheap these days), Purple Rain, Parade, sometimes 1999 will be there, The Hits, Emancipation, Even Controversy and Dirty Mind sometimes. You finger through them one at a time. No need to read them, the second you catch even a glimpse of the front cover you know what it is and you finger through to the next one...

Alas, nothing there to surprise.... Bummer.

Then you go over to the DVD section, eyes scanning for the P section. You scan along.... nothing... where are they?... nothing... Pink Floyd, Elvis Presley, Primal Scream….. should be here…. And then….. Queen. WTF! So you scan back again and there they are, you just missed them there was so few… the Hits and Live at the Aladin…. Sometimes you may find Rave. But where are all those others that used to fill up the video shelves? Where is the Undertaker? Sacrifice of Victor? Purple Rain Live? Livesexy 1 & 2? Sign o the Times? You already have them on VHS…. And it looks like its gonna stay that way.

But never-the-less, you still walk over to the small (and getting even smaller day by day) VHS section in the far corner. You scan through the titles looking for P…. PA… PE… PR…. PRE…. PRIM…. Q…! Pah! Not even one Prince title.

At this point, and depending on what kind of store you are in, you may decide to look through the biographies in the book section, or hit the bargain bins just in case that rare gem shows up. If youre in a smaller shop that specialises in rarer releases you may go through the records, 12 inches and second hand stuff…

But only once you have completed you usual music store ritual can you continue to shop like any other punter in the store and browse for something you might like…

And nine times out of ten, you walk out with absolutely nothing…

Or am I alone in this?

Oh lord, you're not alone at all. I remember doing that all the time when I used to pay for music. Ahem. It was Primus that always got to me, what with them being the closest alphabetically to our purple man.

You may have more fun in a second hand record shop if you can find one. I remember the first time I tried a second hand wrecka stow for P records, and I found loads of very nice bootlegs....

Have you been following me ?

That's exactly what I do, except around Christmas when you can't get to the Prince section for all the people looking for the latest 'Elvis Presley's Greatest Hits' for their mums and dads.

newpowergeneration said

And John Prine on the other side.

hello, Newpowergeneration. I made a comment on your Mp3 downloads on the other page I hope you have a chance to read it. the page where you can download your mixes. they are sweet. Keep rocking, Love, Peace, @ Always B Wild.

Oh yeah thats me all the way!!

I've even started thumbing through the records looking
for gems. My fellow music hunting buddies regularly
fuss with me for "visiting Princey" and even organinzing
his cds in chronological order

AsylumUtopia said:

I still do this. I've been doing it since I was 13!

I mean, who the fuck is John Prine?

Same here! I always go through the letter P and se if there's any Prince cd or dvd I don't have and wanna buy. Usually they have something close to nothing
[Edited 4/7/06 8:33am]

Me too!!! I am totallt feeling all your comments here. Second hand stores and shops that get imports are best,oh and record fairs.

Rebeljuice said:

get out of my head dude

Wow. I TOTALLY know what you mean!!

I was in Circuit City last Friday going through exactly that ritual. It's a bit of a masochistic exercise. I mean, I already do own everything. It only makes me sad to see that his section is so skinny.

John Prine. Absolutely. Always John Prine!!!

I'm free from the habit though, I never search the P's. Prince stopped putting out great B-sides and weird stuff years ago, and eventually I had to accept it.

On the other hand, I like Prince now more than I have since after Emancipation so I look forward to the stuff he's doing now.

dude you must be a psychic or something. I go through this ALL the time. I will go into a store and see nothing but numerous copies of "the very best of" "the hits" and some purple rains and maybe a few other 80s albums. I go through this all the time and i hate it.

yep, that's me
and it's also my most common Prince dream
to be browsing the record store and finding something new
then waking up and trying to remember the titles of the songs!

OMG, ya caught me red-handed.

I go through this every single time. The only place it pays off is a small store where they sell used and rare stuff. I've found a few goodies there.

Another question? Am I the only one who takes P's stuff and puts it in front of everybody else's on the same rack?



I need a damn 12-step program.

Silly me, but I have to ask. Why do you do that? So that other ppl can notice it?

I used to always check the Prince section because I never knew when a new maxi-single might come out with a B side. A lot of these dumb ass record clerks don't even know what a maxi-single is and sometimes place one over in the album section by mistake.

Since I joined the org I hardly ever check the Prince section because if Prince farted these motherfuckers are going to know about it.

VenusBlingBling said:

Yep...hope springs eternal.

vainandy said:

Since joining these fansites I get email every time the man sneezes!

VenusBlingBling said:

Rebeljuice said:

this is sooooo me !!!!!

babynoz said:

Yeah, me too. It's called Grass Roots Marketing.

This is so true. I always pretend Im interested in something eles, and I just drift along to the Prince section and casually buy it acting like Im not bothered about it, then run home to play it. By the way, I am 31!

I do this even when I'm out with my kids at the mall or something. It drives them crazy. Maybe it's some sort of OCD? I can't walk past cds in a store without checking the Prince section, even though I know that it only contains 10 copies of The Very Best Of Prince.

FunkMistress said:

Tell me about it!! I started a thread about John Fucking Prince a year or two ago!

Im glad im not the onlt freak who does this ..we really need a support group.!


Anyways, The Best Buy I do this in has had the same copy of New Power Generation maxi single CD for at least 2 years now. One of these days im going to buy it (even though I have it already) , so I can quit seeing it there

JimmyNothing said:

John fucked Prince!?!



(I meant John fucking Prine!)

Rebeljuice said:

LMAO. Classic. I do this nearly every 3 days. Today in the music store they had something I hadnt seen before in there - 'Blue Note plays Prince'. I didn't buy it, but was surprised to see a version of "Electric Chair" on the tracklisting.

Militant said:

LMAO. Classic. I do this nearly every 3 days. Today in the music store they had something I hadnt seen before in there - 'Blue Note plays Prince'. I didn't buy it, but was surprised to see a version of "Electric Chair" on the tracklisting.[/quote]


It's a great CD- consider buying it!

I don't look in the VHS section but I do check the CD's and DVD's I'm so glad it isn't just me. I love the used record store!!

newpowergeneration said:

You too??? Whew, I was getting worried.