Is the concept of the "music store" over? (CNN Money)

[The Pontificator]

"No one questions that piracy has eaten into profits. But all the attention paid to the moral and legal issues surrounding copyright protection has allowed the music labels to avoid taking responsibility for violating a cardinal principle of business: Give the customers what they want."

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/business2/business2_archive/2004/03/01/363569/index.htm

 

[Kentos]

I haven't bought a physical cd in 10 years. My kids will likely never use a cd for the purpose of playing music.

 

[Agravic]

Unfortunately, yes...the 'music store' as I knew it growing up is no longer a viable entity. I miss the fun of browsing through stacks/rows of music, both new and used, looking at cover art etc.

I still buy CDs, predominantly from Amazon, for the liner notes and artwork etc. I also like having a 'hard copy' of music as backup.

My kids are itunes junkies.

Such is the nature of 'progress'

 

[mmack66]

I'd have thought brick and mortar music stores had already been dead for years.

 

[Edcculus]

I hate to say it, but yes. I tried holding on to physical music stores until the one in my college town shut down. With music (legally) at my fingertips, I just dont have much need for a brick and mortar store anymore. At this point, I buy music on iTunes, or stream it on Spotify at work.

 

[The Nid Hog]

I miss brick and mortar stores, but I think it's a generational thing. I'm pretty sure that my kids are every bit as musically aware as I was. Probably more. They know about all kinds of international and indie releases and they snap up new music as soon as it's available. It seems to me that the one thing that is missing today is the work of the great music writers like Griel Marcus, Lester Bangs, Robert Christgau, Dave Marsh and others. I'm sure that there are good writers today, but I haven't come across anybody with voices as distinct as those guys.

 

[jazzman]

The pleasures of a leisurely visit to a record store, maybe reading the credits on one LP then checking to see if a sideman has released anything under his own name, maybe discovering that a favorite band has issued many more great records than you were aware of because there was no internet to give you that info effortlessly, may be gone for good. I still miss it. As for the music itself, most recordings available by download are sonically inferior to CDs and LPs, but the artists who record for the "right" demographic don't need to care because their customers don't care. Sad.

 

[Walker]

Yea, i would say it's over. I'll bet the ones that are still open are selling more DVD's than CD's. With mp3's and the internet i listen to a song and if i want to know who played drums on that track i use the internet, where once i flipped through the cd booklet. Remember when cd's used to come in those huge card board boxes?

 

[ouch]

I still can't believe that with all the technology we have, sound quality isn't better.

 

[Walker]

I still can't believe that with all the technology we have, sound quality isn't better.

Vinyl still has the best sound quality. My opinion of course

 

[njpaddy]

I haven't been in a music store in more than 10 years. They just don't carry the styles of music that I listen to. I still prefer to have a CD, but I buy them from amazon or directly from the small bands that I like.

 

[cb91710]

Ditto. Haven't bought a CD in over 10 years.

Of course... even if there were no such thing as MP3, I would still not likely have bought anything in the last 10 years because nothing worth listening to has been recorded in the last 10-20 years.

 

[mretzloff]

All of the things you could do at a music store you can do much better online. Music stores no longer serve a purpose.

 

[Arcadies]

I haven't bought a physical cd in 10 years. My kids will likely never use a cd for the purpose of playing music.

+1

The last physical cd I purchased was Iced Earth's Alive in Athens in 1999.

 

[professorchaos]

Part of the problem with a B&M music store is the limited range of music they can physically stock vs. Amazon (or Apple & Google for exclusively digital purchases). Last time I went into one, I couldn't find anything I wanted. So on the rare occasion I want the physical media, I'll scoop it up off of Amazon.

 

[Matt555]

What is a CD?

But yes, in all seriousness, the few remaining music stores will be gone within a few more years. It looks like dvd's are on their way out as well....

 

[tinashubby]

It was nice to get excited over the release of some new vinyl, get to the store for some actual hands on purchases. The album covers that opened, and had some extras inside were awesome! I believe an old ELO album I had some interesting stuff inside.

Nowadays, I use a flash drive exclusively in my car.
Music stores would be like going to an actual shaving supply store!

 

[Arcadies]

It was nice to get excited over the release of some new vinyl, get to the store for some actual hands on purchases. The album covers that opened, and had some extras inside were awesome! I believe an old ELO album I had some interesting stuff inside.

Nowadays, I use a flash drive exclusively in my car.
Music stores would be like going to an actual shaving supply store!

My Dad loved ELO and listened to them all the time when I was a child, so much in fact it rubbed off on and me and I started loving them and always looked forward to him firing up the record player. He passed his vinyl collection down to me about 10 years ago and amidst the large stack of LP's were ELO Discovery and Time. I still listen to Time incessantly, albeit in the form of mp3's..they may have gotten a lot of flack for that album but it's my all time fav ELO.

 

[The Pontificator]

I pretty much by-passed the whole CD thing and never owned a CD player. I continued to buy cassettes for a while as my company vehicles always came equipped with a cassette deck even up 2005. I only started to buy CD's after I bought my first computer in 2000 and then it wasn't much.

Those cassettes were sold off at a garage sale for ten bucks...enough tapes to fill two Budweiser beer case boxes.

this cartoon by The Oatmeal pretty much sums up how I feel about the music industry:

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/music_industry

 

[tinashubby]

My Dad loved ELO and listened to them all the time when I was a child, so much in fact it rubbed off on and me and I started loving them and always looked forward to him firing up the record player. He passed his vinyl collection down to me about 10 years ago and amidst the large stack of LP's were ELO Discovery and Time. I still listen to Time incessantly, albeit in the form of mp3's..they may have gotten a lot of flack for that album but it's my all time fav ELO.

I was in eighth grade when this one came out, most of us kids had to have it! I recently saw some music videos of ELO, I had to laugh! The good old days