Thursday, July 31, 2008

Peaches Records' quarter location has opened!

edit: this is SLIGHTLY outdated. Though I've been back a few times, the feeling is mostly the same, check it out here

And it kind of sucks. I didn't know about the old Gretna location until this one was underway (and apparently there was a riverwalk location as well? I don't remember seeing one) but this one has nice juicy real estate on Decatur where Tower Records used to be.


I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt; I don't think they're quite done yet. The upstairs is completely untouched and the listening stations are blank. Not to mention there were construction workers inside. So I suspect the inventory will only be beefed up from here and hopefully it will feel a little less empty.

The inventory they currently have actually isn't that bad. For a mainstream oriented store they have a HUGE and prominent local section that's even subdivided by genre (brass etc.) The rock section was up to date and had most major releases you'd hope to see, but don't expect to find that one album you've been hunting down. The soul/R&B section was especially strong with a lot of older releases displayed prominently. However, I wasn't even able to find an electronic section, much to the dismay of a gay man* hassling an employee looking for Tiesto. I'm not really a tiesto fan but that's not horribly obscure or anything.

Vinyl? Mostly singles, mostly hip-hop. As it is now, this is definitely a CD-oriented store. While I'll buy either medium (vinyl over CD) it's a little disheartening to see a new store open with almost zilch for a medium that's gaining in popularity in favor of the medium people are singing the swan song for.

But really the main flaw was the price. Don't expect to find ANYTHING under $10 and expect to regularly see single disc albums retail for $20. Example: The Shepherd's Dog by Iron and Wine. I have no interest in that album but I can't fathom why it's retailing for that price other than the enourmous rent they must be paying for that spot. Most CDs retail for around $17 and given their good-but-sparse-and-unspectacular selection I found nothing to walk out with.

bottom line: Peaches records offers only a few things over buying CDs at Barnes and Noble: beefier local section, indepenedently owned and French Quarter location. And unfortunately, there are stores in the area that achieve all their draws better.

I hope they do improve but in the shape that I saw them there wasn't much for me to get excited about.

*I mention that he's gay because as I walked back to my car the guy leaned out the window of his sports car and purred something through his thick accent with a horrifying and swarmy "I want that" stare looking straight at me. While Peaches is in no way responsible for this incident it didn't leave me feeling good about the whole experience.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Do you know about Louisiana Music FActory? It's been in the Quarter for sixteen years and is locally owned, operated and focuses on local and regional music. I believe they have the largest selection of local music of anywhere in the world. They have killer live shows and give out discounted coupons for beer at bars on their street ($1.50 for 16oz local beer). Cool decor, too.
Just curious.
By the way, the staff at Peaches are a bunch of a**holes.
Cheezit

Hunter said...

Yeah, this post is pretty old which is why I linked to the other one at the top. LA Music Factory is excellent and, especially given how close it is, really kind of eliminates any reason to go to Peaches.

Though it is worth pointing out that I'm pretty sure Peaches is also locally owned and operated. Really, I think that's the case with any record store in the city aside from maybe the FYE on the westbank. Excluding Best Buy, Borders etc.