In March 1995 Clark
Benson, former record company employee and business graduate
from U. of Illinois-Urbana, started up the Oasis CD Listening
Station program in Los Angeles. Working with High Level
Marketing, Oasis distributed 80 listening kiosks to 40
high-profile independent record stores across California,
Arizona, Nevada and New Mexico. In July of '95, Paul Pearson
joined Oasis after moving to Los Angeles.
Oasis began its expansion the
following January, as it added more stores in the Northwestern
and East Coast U.S. Finally in May 1999, it expanded into the
Midwest, giving the program coast-to-coast coverage. Joel
Oberstein joined the company as principal sales rep at that
time. Also, due to legal complications involving another music
company (not the band), Oasis officially changed its name to
ISIS Listening Station Program.
Later that year, the ISIS team developed the Almighty Lighted Display program. They distributed 50 back-lighting display units to independent stores throughout the country, and provided each store with a DuraTrans display featuring four pieces of cover artwork and a new release strip. Almighty gave retailers a new, large-scale visual tool that was attractive and useful.
Almighty initiated its urban
program in 2001, distributing its lightbox to indie stores with
high concentrations of soul, R&B, hip-hop and urban sales,
and tailoring the Display contents to these stores.
The Almighty Institute of Music Retail was launched in 2003.
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