Tuesday, September 1, 2009

A Fond Farewell

No, I'm not going anywhere, but unfortunately one of my favorite stores is. Homer's is the name of the store I go to most often to buy music when I am in Lincoln or Omaha, Nebraska. I have been shopping there since I was in junior high. It has always been my personal favorite because of the selection and the ease of finding what I was looking for. My favorite aspect of the store was the fact that they had a metal section, most other stores don't separate metal from rock and one has to go through dozens of artists to find one metal artist.

There used to be several Homer's in Lincoln, where I grew up. In the last couple of years that number has dwindled to just one, but it was a great store and I went there almost every time I was back in town. Now, even that store is closing. There are three stores in Omaha, one of which is also closing. So, we will be down to just two stores in Omaha. I haven't figured out what I am going to do about the lack of stores in Lincoln yet. Of course there are places like Best Buy to buy music, but I always preferred the independent record stores. Much more underground selection.

This, of course, sheds a little light on some major problem plaguing independent record stores in recent years. With internet access and downloading, stores are not doing nearly as well. It's too bad, because part of the charm of going to stores was looking at something new that you may not have seen before. It's hard to do that online. I enjoyed just going there and looking around. Sometimes I would pick up something blindly and buy it and it would prove to be a great album. This is how I got into groups like Dark Tranquillity, Opeth, Meshuggah, In Flames, Iced Earth, and many more.

Homer's, you have been good to me. I will miss you.

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