This recent "Batman Begins" goose-chase, and a recent trackdown/blowup/mishap with a last-minute father's day present has only served as the culmination of a philosophy that I've been developing, that goes a little like this:

"If you can't find it yourself, don't bother."

What does this mean? Well, for those who don't find it immediately obvious, it means don't waste your time or the attending employee's time asking about something of which they have no idea....

- If you have to specify "Score only" over "Music inspired by" album, don't bother. (This is the golden prime amongst fans.)

"Oh--this isn't the one you want..."
"Yes it is."
"You do know that this is..."
"Yes."
"And there are no songs..."
"Yes."

Generally, this alienates you from employees who think that only cool and/or ignorant people should shop in their stores.

- If you have to tell them that "Spider-man" is hyphenated, and "Batman" is one word....

Common sense, really.

- When the employee is looking any Bond soundtrack by artist "Bond, James"....

Don't...don't...snatch the keyboard away from the retail employee, no matter how tempted you are to smack their knuckles with it.

- "Bernstein" not "Burnstine"...

See the "Spider-man/Batman"..again, just common sense.

- While being ignorant of the fact that not only is their a major movie in current wide release, but also that movies on occasion have soundtracks....Likewise, Employees that insist on looking for it in the wrong area....

"Van Helsing? Well...Who is the artist?"
(If you really must know...) "Alan Silvestri."
"Oh." [proceeds to "S" in "Pop/Rock"]
"I don't think it would be in this section..."
"That's 'Silvestri' S-Y-L, right?"

- When they reference you an on-line source after 10 grueling seconds of searching.

"Looks like that is out of print."
"Out of print? The score album was just released yesterday..."
"Oh. Have you tried Amazon.com"?

Wouldn't it be easy if all relentless consumers could be turned away by such a magical phrase? Either way, the argument goes to the point of this--

1. You are smarter than anyone in retail. For those of you who work retail, (like myself), customers are lucky to have you. Use your powers for good, not evil. No, it doesn't impress women. Much.

I gave up shopping at Best Buy because not only are things often a mess, but they also have these huge pillar struts blocking whole sections of their "soundtrack" display area.

RETAIL STORES ARE DEAD!

Wherehouse is just about gone, Tower is on it's way out. Hell, Virgin closed it's Burbank store after the "roof collapsed" and they won't reopen!

You are better off shopping online. Retail stores are not about to carry score only soundtracks. They simply don't sell as well as pop, rap, jazz, etc. . . The buyers for the stores simply don't care because:

A) They are ignorant of the product
B) There is a low demand.

Shelf space at most of these stores is limited, so they would rather stock 50 copies of the latest Foo Fighters cd than 2 copies of Batman Begins simply because Foo sells.

I was shocked to see that Batman wasn't in at my local Best Buys. Hell, they won't even be carrying them in stores. Their answer is go to Bestbuy.com

When dealing with online services, the companies can keep a low inventory (something which all retailers are taxed on at least 2 times a year). The lower the inventory, the less taxed you are.

Bigger online stores like Amazon and Bestbuy.com, as well as specialty online stores like moviemusic are quickly becoming the only way you will be able to find score driven soundtracks.

Best,
MV

Nowadays, it's different. For one thing, buying isn't necessarily done at a branch level for a lot of record stores anymore. For another, they have narrowed down their selections, and not just in the film music department. I had to go to three stores to find a copy of the remaster of Iggy and the Stooges' Raw Power. We're not talking Guido Striker Sings Polka Favorites here, this is Iggy Pop!

So nowadays I tend to buy stuff on line. There are significant advantages, one of the main ones being that you can order the disc to arrive on its release date, so Stripes and Caveman were in my mailbox on the very day I would have bought them had I gone to the store... wait a minute, Stripes isn't even available in stores yet, is it?

I, too, miss the experience of browsing. Hell, I worked at a record store, so browsing was kind of like my job for a while, right? But time marches forward... and as Lancelot says, we must evolve...

Although I could do without that nostril on my left nipple. I'm down with shopping on line, but some of these new mutations give me the willies.

The only place that has a well stocked soundtrack section is Tower Records in Dallas, they had almost every FSM release plus I saw copies of Caveman. However some of their prices are a tad too high and it's a 2-1/2 hour drive to get there.

It used to be fun to go in to all of the stores and browse their soundtrack sections but I think one of the problems for me is that I've bought most of the scores I used to seek out. There was time I could go into a place and find about 20-30 scores I wanted. Well over a period of time I've managed to add those to my collection and now other than new releases it seems most of the scores I buy are from FSM, Varese CD Club, Intrada Specials, La-La-Land etc. While some of those eventually make it to stores it's quicker to get them online.

I've also found shopping on e-bay or the used section at Amazon can turn up some rare gems at a decent price. I've found many hard to find scores from $5.00 to $7.00 buy just browsing e-Bay.

These last couple of years I've done most of my Christmas shopping on line. It takes me maybe an hour to buy for everyone, plus there's no tax and depending on what you purchase you can get free shipping on orders.

I usually don't even waste my time with store employees when I'm looking for something because I know can go online and find it with no hassle. The only time I ask a sales clerk is when I go to Best Buy because I have a friend who works there but even he gets frustrated because there are many times the store shows to have received something and it's nowhere to be found in the store.

To further add to the above rant I was able to find only 1 copy of War Of The Worlds at Best Buy after searching several other places. Wal-mart was my last choice and I avoid that place at all costs.