RECORD STORE TALES #1202 Jock Jams

At the Beat Goes On, we had a lot of teachers as customers.  Teachers were interesting customers.  They were like sheep, all looking for the same thing.  It was so bizarre the first time I was swamped by teachers all coming in looking for the same CD.  A CD that was out of print, incidentally.  That CD was TSN’s Jock Jams disc.

In the late 90s, teachers were told at a teaching convention that kids learn better to certain kinds of upbeat music.  1995’s Jock Jams was given as an example of the kind of music to play in class.  Teachers were told to get a copy, play it in class while kids worked, and note the improvement in their performance.  Jock Jams!  That is what they were told to buy.  They couldn’t get it at the mall, since it was out of print.  So, they came to us, a used CD outlet.  We were swamped, at every location, by teachers.

“Do you have Jock Jams?” asked the first one.  I didn’t have one in stock, but I called one of our other stores who did have it.

“Can you get them to hold it for me?  I’ll be right there,” said the teacher.  That teacher would be the only one to score Jock Jams on that day.  Shortly thereafter, a second customer came in asked for the exact same CD.  That always raised my eyebrows when it happened.  When multiple people came in asking for the same album on the same day, over and over again, it meant something had happened.  Sometimes it meant an artist won an award.  Other times it meant the artist had died.  This time, much to my surprise, it because of a teacher’s convention, where they were told to buy an out-of-print and out of date CD.

“Do you have Jock Jams?” asked a second customer.

“No,” I answered in surprise. “We just sold our only copy.  Literally just now, a guy came in and got our only copy.”

“When can you get another? I need it for my class. I’m a teacher.”

“Well, we are a used CD store, so we’ll get another copy when it is traded in. I can put you on a wait list,” I answered.

“How long will that take? I need it for September.”

“Impossible to guess,” I replied. “The CD is out of print.  Someone has to have a copy, and trade it in first. I can put you on a waiting list.  Or I could get you Jock Jams 2?” I offered.

“No no,” answered the teacher.  “We were told to get Jock Jams 1.”

“Jock Jams 2 will have similar music, just newer songs that your students will know better than Jock Jams 1,” I mentioned.

“They said to get Jock Jams 1,” replied the teacher with zero initiative.  And so, the customer left their name and number and I put them on a wait list.

Then the next customer came in.

“Do you have Jock Jams?” they asked.

“No, we sold our only copy this morning. Are you a teacher?” I asked.

“Yes, how did you know?”

Because of that teacher convention, we had 20 customers come in that day for Jock Jams, and added seven names to the waiting list. It took years to clear that waiting list.  Notably, a few went for the more recent Jock Jams 2, but most were steadfast.  “We were told to use Jock Jams 1,” they would answer.

“Well I can tell you that you’re not going to get Jock Jams 1 in this town, this semester,” I regrettably informed them.  “Your students won’t even know the songs on Jock Jams 1.”

“We’re supposed to use Jock Jams 1,” they would reply.  OK…lots of luck!

We ended up cranking our prices up on Jock Jams 1 any time they came in stock.  They used to be $8.99.  Now we would ask $19.99.  Supply and demand, and there was very little supply and much demand.  Teachers didn’t want alternatives to Jock Jams. “We were told to get Jock Jams,” they would bleat like sheep.  This went on a couple years, every August.

Every time I see a Jock Jams CD, I think of that damn teacher convention that brainwashed these people into thinking that Jock Jams, and only Jock Jams, would improve their students’ learning.  Only towards the end of the rush would teachers finally break down and buy something else that was similar in style, like a MuchDance album.

I lost a lot of faith in the teachers of the late 1990s during the week of that convention, and the rush on Jock Jams.  No imagination, no flexibility, no originality.  What was the world coming to?