Why couldn't they just wrap the cd cover in black plastic with the artist and album name in large print (like a porno mag at a convenience store). Wouldn't that be much easier than reprinting the covers? I had a copy of a Too-Short cd that was purchased at Walmart many years ago (can't remember where I got it) At least 60% of the lyrics on the cd were covered by loud beeps. Why even sell that? So Wal-Mart endorses the rest of Too-Short's lyrics, just not the curse words? Walmart should have to put disclaimers on ther cd's (or do they do this already?) that states that it is either not the original cover art or the work has been edited to be sold at Walmart. If it was the first time you had seen the album, you might not know that it wasn't the original cover and buy it. Just out of curiosity, How many of you guys have purchased, or regularly buy music at Walmart? I buy tons of cds and it has just never crossed my mind to buy one there. Probably because most of the stuff I listen to, Walmart doesn't carry, but still. I know the numbers show that they sell a ton of music, but I've never actually known someone who purchased any there.
The worst part is that if Wal-Mart hadn't run off every mom & pop store out there, CD's would still be sold through distributors and none of this would be an issues. Ok, there is worse. Wal-Mart represents something like 1/3 of the record label distribution (they're lazy, but that's another story) and, out of something like 2500 CD's released every year, Wal-Mart only agrees to take on about 300. So, if you shop at WM, you are only going to pick from about 10 percent of the total CD releases for the year. But, who would freakin' shop for music there anyway? Yuck.
Nope, never bought a CD at WalMart. Come to think of it, I haven't bought a CD in about 6 years...! Man, I need to go back to college. I thought 10% of 2500 was 250. Dang it, Jeff, you used the ultimate MATH cop-out: "about 10 percent".
It wasn't Wal-Mart that ran off the mom and pops, it was the consumers. I agree with everything else you said. I only go to Wal-Mart about once very six months.
