I Guess Times Change

A few old work buddies and I went to Tower Records in Center City this past Saturday – this was normally a post-holiday tradition for us, but since Tower is closing on December 12, we decided to get one more shopping trip in. It’s unfortunate that a record store like this is closing down, but with the popularity of MP3’s (not to mention major record companies opting to promote crap like Kevin Federline and Paris Hilton), this has become a trend.

It’s a sad day for me (I’m sure I’m not the only one), because I have always LOVED the experience of purchasing an album/cassette/cd (I have well over 1000 cds in my collection). Physically holding the album, admiring the album art, and reading the liners, not to mention actually physically putting the cd into the cd player to listen to the tracks – this I lived for (and continue to live for).

Obviously, the record companies (and stores) have to take a lot of the blame, as they have in recent years jacked up the prices of cds to ridiculous amounts. Plus, it doesn’t seem like there are enough cds that have enough good songs on them to merit their purchase. It is much easier to go to I-Tunes and download one or two songs instead of paying the $15-$20 to buy an entire cd in which you may only listen to one or two songs.

Plus, with the purchasing power that stores like Best Buy and Circuit City have, it is usually more beneficial (at least in terms of cost) to buy at these places. But, variety is usually sacrificed (Best Buy actually isn’t too bad). Limited shelf space means only the most “popular” cds are sold. I hate this, because I generally like to experiment with my music purchases. In the past few years, I’ve started acquiring music via MP3 purchases, and I guess there will eventually come a point when I exclusively do this. I’m just going to miss buying cds.

On a side note, Tower’s “going out of business sale” is not really that astounding – in fact, even with the “30-50%” sales, they still are more expensive than the big box stores. Basically, Tower took all of their “special” pricing off of their merchandise, which was probably around 30% off, and jacked the prices up to the $19 range (for their cds) . I guess I’ll have to wait until December 1, until the “real” savings can be reached … but, by that point, I may only have Federline and Hilton to choose from.