So you walk into Best Buy and you realize that there is a massive hole in your psyche left by the store’s environment. Is this hole shaped like wire bins filled with discounted copies of Reign Over Me on HD-DVD, ugly orphans of the format war? Is it, perhaps, shaped like a half-understood attempt to get a share of the vinyl market? What if it’s shaped like Guitar Center, but without mullets?

The nation’s largest consumer electronics retailer will announce Tuesday that it plans to open as many as 85 of the music centers inside its stores by the end of the year and could add even more locations in the future, executives told The Associated Press.

While this is surprising, the even more shocking thing is that Best Buy isn’t half-assing: Once everything is up and running, the chain will have the second-highest number of locations of any musical-instrument seller in the U.S. In addition, lest you think this is an attempt to flog tragically cheap instruments on an already-despairing consumer base, Best Buy plans to carry higher-end instruments (Fender, Roland, and Gibson were all mentioned in the article) and to set aside approximately 2,500 square feet of space in each location for instruments.

“We’re not just extending the shelf space in the store, we’re creating a designated area specifically for this experience,” said Kevin Balon, the company’s vice president of musical instruments. “And we’re trying to create an authentic and genuine musical instrument store look and feel inside of Best Buy.”

I hope that you are as psyched as I am by the possibility of hearing “Sweet Child O’ Mine” being mangled in the distance next time you need a solid way to soothe the void with appliances spend your stimulus check.

Best Buy to open in-store music centers [AP]