Best Buy Stories

In the early 1990s, there was a garden-supply store near where I live. I went in once to buy a porch plant that (like most plants in my care over the years) would not survive for more than a year.

The garden-supply store closed and a Best Buy opened in its place a few months later.

I didn’t know what Best Buy was. I’d never heard of the chain before. I’d never thought that it made sense to have a store that sold both stereo equipment (and TVs!) and recorded music.

And yet… there it was. Close enough to where I lived that I could walk there (although I rarely did).

Even though it confused me at first, I grew to love Best Buy. They had so many cool pieces of stereo gear there and eventually started selling computers and printers and all sorts of stuff. I am pretty sure I bought printers and software and maybe a laptop at Best Buy over the years. We may have bought our last refrigerator there. I know I bought a portable hard drive there. And maybe a phone case. And a bunch of CDs over the years. (They even had a section complete with a plastic divider for the band Amy was in, which was unusual for anywhere except Tower Records.)

But in my mind, Best Buy will always make me think of the Beatles Anthology CDs.

Because it was not too soon after the Best Buy near me opened that the Beatles Anthology series premiered on TV just about 30 years ago.

And along with the TV series, there were three two-CD sets released in December 1995, March 1996, and October 1996. I bought each of those CDs from the Best Buy near me. Best Buy put them on sale and each of the two-CD releases cost less than a single new CD would cost at Tower Records (because Tower always had an amazing selection, but rarely had decent prices).

The Anthology project came along at a time when the Beatles were in danger of being relegated to the trash heap of history. But suddenly, the TV series and the “new”/old CDs reminded everyone of how important the Beatles were to pop culture in general and how great and innovative their music was. The CDs even contained two “new” songs the surviving Beatles (with assistance from Jeff Lynne) created from late-70s demos made by John Lennon. All of this helped introduce a new generation to the Beatles and reboot the band as a brand that continues 30 years later to outsell most modern bands.

And knowing that so many people still loved the Beatles and still listened to the music I’d loved for my entire life made me feel somewhat vindicated and a bit less like a freak.

Let me pull back for a moment and mention that I generally don’t buy things on Black Friday, even in the heyday of such behavior. I never understood people who would get up early (or go at midnight) for doorbuster sales and would watch TV reports of near-riots at retailers like Wal-Mart with dismay.

The only time in the past 20 years that I bought anything on Black Friday was about 13 years ago. I had a client who was sending me tons of Kindle books and the Kindle app on PCs was not great back then. I decided to buy a new Kindle Fire and Best Buy put them on sale for Black Friday at a huge discount.

But Kindles weren’t sexy in 2012 and people were much more excited about the other doorbusters Best Buy had that year (TVs, laptops, etc.).

This was also during the era when stores would open at midnight on Black Friday and stay open all night. (And of course, back then people traveled to stores to buy things on Black Friday instead of hitting refresh on a browser while watching football.)

I fell asleep early that Thanksgiving night and was wide awake at 3:30 a.m. That seemed like good timing. It seemed almost like an omen. Surely, I thought, the crowds of crazy people looking for bargains at midnight would all be gone and the morning shoppers would not yet be awake.

So, I got dressed, walked to Best Buy in the dark, picked out one of the dozen Kindle Fires they had, bought it, and walked home. There may have been three other shoppers in the gigantic store when I was there and many bored, sleepy Best Buy workers. I was back in my bed by 4:00.

Photo by kazuend on Unsplash

I used to go to my neighborhood Best Buy once or twice a month. I’d browse through the CDs (especially the rows of elaborate box sets), look at stereo equipment I couldn’t afford, and sometimes peruse the software they sold there. I’d tell friends I was visiting things at the store that I hoped to buy in the future.

But over the years, Best Buy changed. They started selling washing machines and refrigerators as well as DVDs and videogames. The collection of CDs got smaller until the box sets disappeared and the real estate in the store formerly devoted to music was taken over by smartphones, computer devices, cameras, and more.

The amount of stereo equipment also shrank. They stopped carrying affordable speakers you’d connect to a stereo (but started stocking tons of Blu-Tooth speakers). And I stopped going in there.

Sure, I’d go in a couple times a year to buy specific items, but most things were easier to find elsewhere (and often were a lot cheaper online).

I went into the Best Buy near me last week. Not to buy anything, but because the local e-waste recycling place closed and I learned that Best Buy took e-waste recycling items for free. So I brought in our 25-year-old vacuum cleaner that had given up the ghost. The folks at Best Buy took my old vacuum (for no charge). Ironically, I bought a new vacuum at a different store because our Best Buy didn’t have a great selection of reasonably priced vacuum cleaners.

Being in Best Buy after hearing so much about the “new” Anthology release and a fourth volume that would join the cleaned-up versions of the other three CDs made me nostalgic. I thought about where I was working in 1995 and the people I used to know there (and what they thought about the Beatles). But unlike 1995, I knew I could listen to the new Anthology disc online and probably wouldn’t buy it (because I was unlikely to want to listen to it more than once or twice).

But while I was in Best Buy, where I’d bought all the original Anthology CDs (not to mention that 3:30 a.m. Kindle Fire, a pair of speakers, at least one printer, and more), I thought I’d see what the new Anthology looked like. I wandered around the store for ten minutes until I realized I couldn’t find the music section (or the movie section where they sold DVDs).

I found a clerk and asked if they still sell CDs. “We haven’t sold CDs in stores since 2018,” he told me.

And that’s when I realized I hadn’t been in Best Buy enough in the past seven years to notice.

Everything about that made me feel strange. So I went home and put on my 30-year-old Anthology 1 CD (which contained music that was already more than 35 years old back in 1995).

It’s odd to feel nostalgia for a feeling of nostalgia that you remember from decades ago. It’s like looking in a series of mirrors and seeing younger and younger versions of yourself in each one until they all blur together.

Time marches, man. Always.