Musicland - History

History

The first Musicland store was opened in 1955 in Minneapolis by Grover Cleveland Sayre II, where the company continued to be headquartered for the remainder of its history, by Heilicher Brothers, a Minneapolis-based regional record distributor and owner of the Soma Records label. In 1964 Musicland merged with JL Marsh and in 1968 with Pickwick International. In 1977, American Can Company purchased Pickwick International and in 1978 purchased the Sam Goody chain of record stores, which had a long history going back to 1951 in New York. Shortly after, Musicland began converting the majority of its stores to the Sam Goody brand name, although some locations did retain the Musicland name into the early 2000s.

The company expanded rapidly during the mall boom of the 1980s and continued to grow into the nineties, enjoying a long tenure as the United States' largest specialty retailer of entertainment products. Most of its Sam Goody stores were located in shopping malls. The company helped launch the careers of many notable artist, including Michael Jackson. In 1986, the first Suncoast Motion Picture Company store was opened as Paramount Pictures (the name change would come in 1988.) This store concept specialized in movies and movie memorabilia, also located in shopping malls. In 1992, Musicland launched a major initiative with the rollout of its big-box Media Play concept. Media Play was a chain of retail superstores that sold movies on video, DVDs, music, electronics, video games, books, toys, and games in the United States. Each store essentially contained a book store, a movie store, a music store, and a video game store under one roof. At their height, they operated 72 stores in 19 states with 2,000 employees. The first store opened in Rockford, Illinois, in 1992. Hundreds of stores were slated to be opened, but only 89 ever were. Mostly freestanding, the stores averaged a massive 45,000 square feet (4,200 m2) in metropolitan areas. During the same period, the company also developed a small market Media Play by opening On Cue stores across the country as well. These "small town Media Plays" also sold Music, Books and Movies, as well as musical instruments and gave small towns that were not near a major metro a place for great selection.

In 2001, Musicland was purchased by Best Buy inc. as part of its initiative to diversify its retail holdings to reach a larger demographic with its consumer electronics and entertainment products. By then, Musicland numbered over 1300 stores. Their intention was to transform Sam Goody into a destination for young people looking for hip electronics. They launched a major remerchandising campaign and converted Musicland's On Cue concept of rural stores to the Sam Goody brand, reducing its position in books and moving more into video games and DVD.