While bargain hunting in Iowa City and Waterloo it never did occur to me about the FYE store going out of business. At least not in Coralville where the FYE store is located at but an hour and twenty five minutes up to the north on 380, the FYE at Crossroads in Waterloo was just about picked bare with fifty percent off everything.
Certainly while in Coral Ridge and rejoicing at the fact of 75 percent off selected CDs was a CD bargain hunters dream although FYE didn't discount everything down like they did in Crossroads. So I wonder if the one out in Moline will be shutting their doors down soon, we know the Springfield Ill store is closed down due to blog reports.
For a record collector or buyer, music stores are becoming few and far between in this decade and the youngsters too busy downloading while the old fart buyers are running out of places to hang at. And Crossroads has been the deathbed of many cd stores. Sam Goody, Camelot, Disc Jockey, perhaps Co Op although they were based in Cedar Falls. FYE bought out Sam Goody a couple years ago and it was the intent to make this FYE store profitable, to which it wasn't. I don't have a lotta complaints about FYE myself, some FYE stores do have a great selection of used stuff (most notably Coral Ridge and the one out in Mesa that overtook Wherehouse Music). And bargains could be found although I question their prices on 2 CD sets of Beatles Anthology to which volume 2 and 3 sold for a ungodly 23.99 and even more. I know one of the Coral Ridge FYE doods from his owning of Discount Records in Downtown Iowa City, another store of the past. But mostly when one went up to FYE anywhere, he could be counted on being pestered by some FYE employee who was thinking that they were working at the hospital. I've had many FYEr's asking me if I was all right while I was searching their vast amount of inventory in the Clarence bins, leaving me to shoo them away or make a comment something like "yeah but i'm not sure about you". Or thinking of ways to put the come on to some poor over-sized female while debating to get a box set in the cutouts for twenty bucks. "no dear, but I think this would make a great way to asking y'all out for tea and crumpets" I thought.
In some ways, I like FYE for the ability to find off the wall stuff or the obscure or even waiting for FYE to stick unwanted cds in the Clarence bins. Which is where I got Nilsson's The Point, or Lone Shelter's Shelter or Best Of Spencer Davis Group for two bucks! And sometimes somebody would sell a used cd for under five bucks which is why I go there in the first place. Or to see if Little Steven dropped another of those Coolest Songs In The World Series since Wicked Cool switched selling their stuff to FYE after a failed attempt with Best Buy couple years ago. But mostly, their pricing of used cds of latest albums for 9.99 was a head scratcher. And probaly is the reason of the demise of FYE. Why buy a used product for 10 bucks when Best Buy has it new for the same price.
And yes, FYE is in trouble just like most stores that over expanded and overexposed itself to the malls and perhaps within the year or two, we'll eventually lose them all. Case in point: back in the mid 90s, in town we had at least 10 decent record stores to choose from. Today Cedar Rapids has none, Waterloo has none and Iowa City And Dubuque has two, IC with Record Collector and Real!, Dubuque with Moondog Music and CDs for Change. This is record stores, not the big boxes that are Best Buy or Wal Mart or Target or FYE or Circuit City which declared Bankruptcy last year and don't figure much into this area. But like Tower Records, I'm sure there will be a internet afterlife for FYE but to the collector and die hard of New Release Tuesday or those who enjoy going into stores to look through cds and records it will not be the same.
I don't think the Coral Ridge FYE is dead but it is on life support, unlike the Crossroads FYE which got the plug pulled from that area. I kinda hate to see the FYE close up there since Waterloo doesn't have jack for stores anymore but even going up there and seeing the shelves just about bare and being a couple weeks late, I did managed to pick up some Maxell high bias Cassette Tapes 50 percent off and did get The Jesus And Mary Chain-Power Of Negative Thinking box set for thirty bucks new. But it is an end of a era for yet another big box store, that had big ambitions, but being in a small town mall with the lease up decided it wasn't worth keeping open.
For the down-loaders of MP3s and such it wont mean a thing but to the collectors of the area, it's one less place to discover music.
PS: FYE closed up their store in March of 2010.
