Guerillas on the wings of Eagles

The new Eagles album The Long Road Out of Eden is exclusive to Wal-Mart and Sam's Club, but according to this blog entry by Don VanCleave, the president of CIMS (the Coalition Of Independent Music Stores), it's somehow finding its way to other stores as well.

When I got the CIMS chart yesterday morning, I quickly scanned it looking for where the WAL-MART EAGLES had landed. Yeah, I know it is a Wal-Mart exclusive, but we practice guerrilla retail. Between Best Buy, Wal-Mart, Target, Amazon and Sam's club, we can't decide who to award as the "Distributor of the Year." With their retail prices generally much lower than our direct from distributor prices, it is always a pleasure to buy all of the hits on deep discount.

So naturally, many of our guys picked up the WAL-MART EAGLES new release at Wal-Mart to resell back in their stores. We heard stories for the past few weeks about customers asking indie stores for the WAL-MART EAGLES. When informed that they would need to go to Wal-Mart to pick up the title, the customers responded "Dude, we don't go in that damn place" or something similar. So, supply and demand dictates that we make it available for our customers.

This causes a Soundscan problem because the CDs are technically being sold twice, but I think it's a resourceful way for independent stores to deal with big box exclusives on hot ticket releases. Wander over to the local Wal-Mart or Sam's Club, pick up an armload of Eagles (or WAL-MART EAGLES, as Mr. VanCleave calls them) discs at $11.99 each, mark them up by a few bucks and resell them at your store.

Or even better, get someone to "liberate" a bunch of CDs from the Wal-Mart (five finger discount style) and sell them for a 100% profit. People always talk about how illegal downloading hurts artists just like shoplifting their CDs from Tower Records Sam Goody Wal-Mart, but discs stolen from retailers don't really hurt artists at all. Apparently the Eagles sold 3 million return-free copies to Wal-Mart, so they've already made their money whether Wal-Mart sells those discs or not. Liberating the discs from Wal-Mart doesn't hurt the Eagles, just Wal-Mart and their insurance company.

I think shoplifting might be against the law, but that's how I'd acquire the Eagles CD if I was interested in getting it. I shop at lots of other big box chains (Best Buy, Target), buy coffee from Starbucks, and eat at multinational fast-food franchises (McD's, BK, KFC,TB), so I'm not the world's most conscientious consumer, but I draw the line at Wal-Mart. When I enter a Wal-Mart store, I feel like I'm supporting organized crime.

The Eagles CD is also available from their website, so independent retailers can also order discs directly from the band (and resell them at a profit) but I'm sure that Don Henley and Glenn Frey do all the order fulfillment from eaglesband.com (just like Santa Claus reading every letter from the kids that write to him every Christmas), so I imagine the following exchange between Don and Glenn when they get unusually high-volume orders from their website.

DH: Hey Glenn, we just got an order for 200 copies of Long Road Out of Eden from Amos B.Music in San Francisco. Ca-ching! Amos must be a big fan.
GF: Uh, Don... that looks like Amoeba Music! Aren't they one of those independent record stores we're trying to drive out of business?
DH: Oh yeah. No discs for Amos, then. Direct sales are only for fans!

The new Eagles CD will probably be a huge seller this holiday season, because the first disc sounds like a pastiche on their 1971-1975 Greatest Hits album (only the top selling album of all time!) and the second disc sounds like three new solo albums by Henley, Frey, and Walsh rolled into one. It took six years to make, so you know it's good. I'm basing this entirely on other reviews, because I haven't heard one note of the damn thing.