Six years ago, Better Days – a Bardstown Road mainstay for 15 years – vanished from the Highlands radar. But owner Ben Jones didn’t see his business headed for the cutout bin. “I have another shop at West 26th and Broadway,” he explains. “At the time, we had gotten into lots of debt, so we downsized and had just the West End store until we could see where the online music industry was going.”
Fresh from a philosophy change, Jones is back – and determined to bring fun back to the music shopping experience while avoiding the pitfalls plaguing so many brick-and-mortar shops today. With the reopening of Better Days at 1765 Bardstown Road last month, Jones is putting into practice a new way of running a business that is both as old-school and revolutionary as the media he sells. “I started contacting lots of independent labels,” he explains. “I said, ‘How can I buy your overstock?’ We do a lot of imports, a lot from Canada, England – things that even the U.S. doesn’t print anymore. I want my product to be paid for and make people feel like it’s really competitive with iTunes and Amazon.”
By buying cheaply with cash in hand, Jones feels that the shopping experience he brings to his customers will be something they can feel good about too. “We know the physical product is much more important in neighborhoods,” he says of items such as CDs and records. “We’re something you can’t get from any digital format or computer system. Anything of any value will be tangible. It doesn’t mean digital music is not worth anything, but we run this business like the stock market. The stock in the physical product is down, but it’s not gone.”
As with the stock market, Jones knows that things are low right now; yet he buys low so he can pass the benefit along to his customers. (The average price of a used classic rock, R&B, soul or jazz CD is $5, and you can get most new titles for around $9.) “Our selection is not chance records, but choice. We chose everything in here,” says Jones.
Jones’ enthusiasm for all genres extends far beyond the usual selection of classic rock that dominates so many stores. The West End location, for instance, tends more toward hip-hop, gospel, blues and jazz. “It’s the soundtrack of our lives,” he says. “We’re going to try to bring some of that jazz and soul back to Bardstown Road.” Jones also talks about southern soul and blues as the new alternative. Being a small operation carrying below-the-radar acts is “exactly how we handled the hardcore/alternative movement until it turned into mainstream and then started falling apart.”
But Better Days is holding on tight. “Music stores originally started out as stores for music lovers, not just music listeners,” Jones says. “Digital is more for music listeners. We’re willing to take that two, three, four percent of those who love the physical product and we’ll do fine with it. You will not be embarrassed or talked about or ashamed here if you buy ‘a record.’”
In addition to the stores, Better Days is also an independent record label, producing small-run CDs for local acts such as Hog Operation, Kimmet & Doug and the Rev. Price King. Local bands have been aware of Better Days’ existence over the past several years, and Highlands music lovers are rediscovering it too. “It looks like we never left,” Jones says. “Once you see the store, you’re going to fall in love with it. It’s just like the kind we grew up with.”
Better Days is located at 1765 Bardstown Road in the Highlands, and was lucky enough to get back its original phone number, (502) 456-2394. The store is open Monday through Thursday from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., Friday and Saturday from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., and Sunday from noon to 7 p.m.
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