First Tower Records, now Virgin?

I heard this from a friend last night, and even though I think Virgin is an overpriced, obnoxious evil chain store, I'll be damned if they don't always have what I'm looking for, especially when it comes to imports.

Is this good news for indie wrecka stows? Are people only flocking to shops that specialize in harder-to-find stuff now that we can buy most mainstream music online?

What's going on?

Anxiety said:

It's the end of music retail as we know it....And I don't feel so fine. Mega stores seem to even be cutting back on their music releases (if not DVD releases as well).

Anxiety said:

For the last time, STORES have no control over what they charge for a cd! Virgin,Tower,Sma Goody all charged high prices because they paid HIGH prices for the shit product, its a business, if you buy something for 12-13 dollars you have to at least sell it for 14-15 to break even. Stores like Best Buy and the others can sell it for 10 and take the hit because they make their money by selling you a TV for 300 dollars that they paid 100 dollars for. Ever wonder why the music departments in these so called "cheaper" stores like Best Buy and Walmart have no selection for people who like music and why its shrinking, because they are starting to feel the hurt too, u cant keep losing 3 dollars a pop, music at this point is a waste to these stores like Best Buy, to them its like those shitty magazines that they put up at the check-out counter in a supermarket, its an after-thought not a priority. So I do hope Virgin closes, because its what the labels deserve, they made the prices, they charge stores 13 bucks a cd and then expect people to pay for it. So let them close, let music just die so the only cds you can find are the latest ciara or lloyd cd when you walk into a best buy, good, let them all go down. Because in the end, labels will go along with them.

Just saw a press release online and it says that they are closing 2 locations in the USA, which will be in Chicago and in Salt Lake City, they will shut down this summer, the total number shut down by Virgin in the USA will stand at 7 leaving only 11 stores open for Virgin in the USA. My guess is that the only one that will eventually be open is the one main store in Times Square.

lastdecember said:

Well, hey, that's business. You give people what they want at a competitive price, and they're going to shop there.

There's always indie stores

lastdecember said:

for the last time? i don't remember the first time!

and that's all fine and well with 15 dollar CDs - that's what my local indie wrecka stow charges for major label new releases and i understand it's because they need to stay open and they're getting charged more by the majors than by the minors for product - i get that, i've been collecting music for a long time. but let's talk about 18.99 for a non-import mainstream release. nineteen bucks at virgin is a lot different than fifteen bucks at reckless, which is a FAR smaller and less prestigious chain, and could certainly use that 18.99 cd money more than a chain like virgin.

too highly priced cd's..


no wonder they lost tha thunder!

you still go to the wecka stow?

i'm one of those people who started downloading tunes from the net and ordered the stuff i couldn't find online.

i'm sure Chicago's stores were different, but here in miltown, since none of stores carried most of the tunes i was lookin' for and had to order it anyway, i just went directly to the net for all my sonic desires.

lately, i've been thinkin' about just buying all of my stuff in a stream format 'cuz, really, these cd's been takin' up a lot of damn space & wouldn't it be evironmentally friendlier? many toxic chemicals go into the whole cd making process.

as far as the linear notes go, i've stopped lookin' at those since cd's came out. but

though, i've also noticed on the newer ipods an image of the album cover appears while playing a song, i'm thinking it's not too far away before we're able to see the linear notes.

Sdldawn said:

no wonder the owner is a fuckin billonaire

lastdecember said:

I hope they don't close this store, my good friend is a manager there. And they just wanted to give him another promotion.

lastdecember said:

First Hurricane Katrina killed the New Orleans French Quarter VMS location, now this!

The VMS was THE place to go for anything Kylie-related as well as electronic music. Now New Orleans & The Dirty South don't have anyplace special for me to go now to find any import CDs.

SIDENOTE: The one and only Wherehouse Music location for Little Rock has also closed down about a month ago. Now there's nothing but Circuit City, Best Buy, & Wal-Mart.

magnificentsynthesizer said:

Anxiety said:

lastdecember said:

They're closing the Chicago store? That sucks; I had really good memories of that store. Especially one involving a meet and greet with Mariah Carey where she signed copies of her "Rainbow" CD. The CD wasn't that great (though "Petals" was an awesome song ), but just seeing Mariah up close in person made my year.

Anyway, with all of the major record chains going under (Sam Goody, Tower, Virgin), it's no wonder why record sales have fallen so drastically. And the worst part is that the record companies brought this upon themselves. The movie studios are doing the same thing the record companies did to alienate customers with their heavy-handed tactics. At least the TV networks are embracing the online industry in the right way. though advertisers aren't too thrilled about it.

I'm surprised they shut anything down in Salt Lake with "Virgin" in the name.

TonyVanDam said:

Is that good indie store in North Little Rock still there? I recall it was on MacArthur Drive but I forget the name. I did a search in the Yahoo Yellow Pages, but it doesn't seem to be listed.


Dang, I'm just thinking about all the good times over the years, looking through record stores around the country (both chains and indies)...

this isnt any indication of the music industry as a whole, just an indication of the American music industry.... which to put it lightly... is fucked!

There is nobody left holding it together. It needs talent to actually operate and sadly there is noone out there with enough talent to create something new and exciting.

MTV is dead, videos are dead, rock is dead, rap and hip/hop have sunk and the marketing/promotion depts across the labels have no money to fund big budget careers like mariah / michael jackson etc anymore.

Virgin closing is just a sign of falling cd sales in the US... its falling by over 10% every year since about 2001... ironically Virgin is doing really well in the UK where it actually sells more cds than the whole of the US combined

FunkyBrotha said:

Yes, but on the other hand, America is the largest market for music in the world. Because these companies are global conglomerates, when the American music industry tanks, it's going to take an enormous bite out of these countries, and it's going to affect the industry in every other market. The money flooding in from the biggest market in the world is what finances the rest of the industry.

I'm not saying it's going to be devastating around the world. But the industry is going to have to go with a completely new model. Then again, they're going to have to do that anyway.

728huey said:

This makes me wonder where will artists have their siginings and in-store performances if retail chains keep closing?

magnificentsynthesizer said:

I don't think it's safe for someone's entire music collection to be mp3 files. I've read too many horror stories posted by orgers that said they lost everything when their hard drive went bad.

sextonseven said:

True. But, there are precautions that can be taken such as backing up your files to CD or an external hard drive.

Also, after buying something from Itunes or Rhapsody, you're always able to re-download your purchase. might be a pain, but at least you're not outta cash like when your cds dry-rot, scratch or lose part of your collection in a cd binder or have it stolen.

CandaceS said:

I don't know yet. I need to travel in North Little Rock more.

FunkyBrotha said:

Take it from THIS american: the european music industry is kicking our american industry's asses WITHOUT having their artists touring my country (USA).

sextonseven said:

Each music-fan with be required to own at least two mp3 players a piece; one for everyday usage & the other for back-up.

For the moment, I don't have any!

magnificentsynthesizer said:

I've never heard of discs dry-rotting. How long does that take to happen?

And binders scratch CDs so I don't use those.

sextonseven said:

Depending on the quality of the original polycarbonate disc, it can be anywhere from 10 to 20 years for a high quality blank disc to 2 to 5 years for a cheaply made one. I know this for certain because some of the cheap disks I burned stuff onto went dead in my CD/DVD rom drive when I tried to pull stuff off of it back onto my computer.

At least these days, you can try using flash drives, which are supposed to be more durable than CDs and DVDs and have no moving parts like a hard disc drive. The cheapest ones store one to 2 gigabytes of data, but the larger flash drives are getting cheaper by the day.

Maybe it’s a generation gap-thing, but I still prefer to buy CDs. It will be a sad day for me when brick-and-mortar record stores have disappeared. For me, there’s a certain joy in browsing record store racks. I often come across albums that I didn’t know existed sitting on the shelves. You can’t really find unknown gems with iTunes’ search feature, since you have to know what you’re looking for. And I find that the best way to discover new music is by browsing through CD collections of friends and borrowing discs of artists whose names I’ve heard but whose music I’m not familiar with. It’s much harder to browse through someone’s MP3 files and borrow music that way.

I also think the MP3 culture has ruined the way I listen to music. I find that I don’t spend as much time acquainting myself with new discs that I buy like I did in the past. Usually, when I buy a CD it gets ripped straight to my MP3 player, and I find myself skipping through tracks more than I did when I would play the physical discs. There’s likely a lot of good music in my MP3 player that I’ve glossed over just because I didn’t give it enough time to grow on me like I would do in the past.

PicassoFace said:

I don't want brick and mortar stores to go away either, but big chain stores can go. I like mom and pop stores and the chain stores choke those guys.