Yes, downloading is surging. (So? Vinyl is too.) Does that mean people will never walk into a store again? Dunno...You can get almost anything you want online, yet stores still function. It's doubtful brick and mortar retail outlets will completely disappear. Granted, music stores have been hit quite hard, but sometimes it's just plain greed: the two NYC Virgin Megastores, for instance, are closing down, not because they're going out of business but due to the landlord--it's the same for both--having visions of a multi-millon-dollar payoff in their eyes.
Meanwhile, the latest issue of Paste has this to say in a lengthy, and worthy, article titled "The Record Store - A Good Thing":
"People are no longer leaving their houses. They are content to wirelessly import digital music straight into nano-engineered storage devices implanted in their grey matter, and the digital revolution is killing brick-and-mortar retail. But, to paraphrase Mark Twain, rumors of the record store’s death have been greatly exaggerated. Just as people of faith need houses of worship in which to commune, music zealots are no less dependent on shrines dedicated to their own decibel-cranked passion. For that reason, Paste hereby celebrates the record store, bestowing superlatives on a few of America’s finest. May they live long and loud!"[Thanks to "5"er Harold Martinez for the Globe and Mail piece. -KJ]
