just a little reply. to the "ignorant" one who said that the world has turned digital and that no one shops in music stores anymore is dead wrong.
to the one who asked how HMV is doing in Canada, its doing GREAT. Locations all around the country which are extremely busy and successful.
Digital is fine as an ease of convinience and portability. But your Hard Drives WILL FAIL one day and unless you've backed it up somewhere, you ain't getting it back from iTunes that's for sure. I like buying a hard copy of my music so it lasts. A Factory pressed CD lasts about 50 years or so, but one you've burnt has a shelf live of at maximum 10-15 years at the most depending on the brands.
Also I really enjoy music, so I still buy vinyl. It will shock some people to know that pretty much EVERY new decent album that comes out has a vinyl counterpart that can be ordered. The rich sound of analog will ALWAYS surpass digital, mp3's etc... Do they scratch as easy, nope because their not like the cheap DynaFlex of the 70's and 80's. Today's vinyl range from 140g to 200g and are beautiful thick platters that sound amazing. Take care of them from the word go and your all set. The sound is phenomenal and incomparable to digital media.
If Disney was smart, they'd have bought Virgin and maybe change the name and run it themselves. When I went, it was packed, because people do still enjoy buying hard copy music over digital sometimes. I know the American economy kinda sucks and pretty much all your music retailers have come bankrupt unfortunatly, but in Canada some have survived and its a great thing. HMV's are a UK company with outlets also in Japan. Its great to still have a music store out there. And its still popular up here. Virgin went wrong somewhere and they could've fixed it, but I guess to them going bankrupt was better, even though it wasn't. They should've kept Time Square and DTD. 2 EXTREMELY BUSY LOCATIONS.
Oh well. Just my 2 cents. haha.
Don't get me wrong, I much prefer going to record stores, and used to love spending hours exploring them, going through used bins, checking out bands with members who were in bands with other members who were in bands I liked. But having said that, just to be fair:
if something happens to your hard drive, anything you buy on itunes (or amazon or emusic, at least) will allow you to re-download the stuff you've previously purchased. In itunes case, you may need to "de-commission" one of your older computers, but I've re-downloaded from itunes plenty of times.
Considering how close Disney and Apple are, I couldn't imagine Disney buying any brick and mortar music chain; even if they could make it profitable, they'd be burning a frequent partner and ally in the process.
One of the biggest problems with music stores in my opinion (and perhaps this is only my opinion) is something that is really not the fault of the stores themselves. It's simply a matter of space. We've now reached the point where even the biggest, best-stocked cd store on the planet can't even hold half of the catalog of CDs currently in circulation, to say nothing of more obscure indie labels, out-of-print titles, limited editions, etc. Once your CD store doesn't have something you're looking for, you either find the CD on Amazon, or download the MP3 from itunes or amazon or emusic etc. Once you start doing that, and you get that instant gratification, or the knowledge that you didn't have to leave your house and travel however long it takes to get to your nearest music store only to discover they don't have what you wanted, you'll probably keep going back.
About a year ago, I realized that I hadn't visited my local big-a** CD store in about 6 months. Part of it was having a baby, my discretionary income ain't what it used to be, part of it was last few times I was in there, they didn't have stuff I was looking for, part of it was it felt less special; it used to be a local chain, just a few stores, but got bought out by one of the bigger chains...who got bought out by a bigger chain who got bought out by a bigger chain. Sure enough, I went there and they had been closed for quite some time. Where I live now, there is a teeny tiny record store, their selection is quite paltry, but they compensate by having live concerts a few times a week, Usually acoustic intimate shows, and they're "dry" (no liquor license) but the people who go clearly give a damn about the musicians who are performing; it's not just a thing to do on the weekend. I've seen a few shows there, it's awesome. But sad to say, for all my looking, I've yet to find an item there I wanted, except for some OOP vinyl I can't afford.
My bet is it will get much more use. Possibly made available for corporate functions etc.) But they still need something big that draws people from HW to the WS.
