A bygone era:
WE are seeing the end of analog-its all didgital now!
How long before AM radio goes extinct?
But, change is good…this is what ahppened to the stables when the autombile came along.
As one poster in the link noted, the record business was sper sleazy-most of the money went into other pockets-the artists got very little.
Did you notice the stores in Detroit? They look like they closed 40 years ago.
That is sad but not the whole truth. Vinyl seems to be on the rise again, at least where I live. Off the top of my head I can count 6 vinyl only stores and 2 cd+vinyl stores within a mile of my home. Most of them sell new releases, and 3 have opened within the last year. They even have vinyl again at the libraries here (which is quite ironic, since I remember the libraries selling their entire vinyl collections less than 10 years ago).
ETA: Cd only stores are closing all around. It’s only vinyl (and even tapes) that are holding on.
We have a record store in our area that has been thriving for decades.
It’s a great place to go, and you’ll find anything you’re looking for. If they don’t have it, I’m sure they can get it. It’s called Headstone Friends, in Terre Haute, Indiana.
http://specials.tribstar.com/terrehautestop40/stories/headstonefriends.html
I’m not bothered. Records sucked.
What does bother me is all of the terrible mastering of CDs and low bit-rate MP3s. We’re going backwards people!
I KNEW they’d include the old Sam the Record Man on Yonge Street in Toronto. That section just doesn’t feel right without those iconic giant neon records. 
Not even remotely true (although it was a few years ago.) When digital became the thing in the recording world, people began selling off their old analog tape and processing gear. The smart producers and engineers started buying it up for cheap. Now, analog is very much on the rise again, because a lot of people like the sound quality much more than that of digital. Most everything still finds its way to digital eventually, but a track produced with analog equipment and then converted still sounds much, much different from a track produced digitally.
This post made me wonder where I could buy CDs in Boston. Then it occurred to me that Newbury Comics is not only hanging on, but thriving. They sell CDs and records. And right around the corner is Best Buy.
The term “record store” generally includes stores that sell CDs and DVDs. If you read the signs on many of the stores pictured, it looks like most of them did.
I actually saw an open record/CD/DVD store in my town the other day. I was pretty floored by its very existence. Seemed so quaint.
There’s also been a resurgence in film photography. Digital is obviously never going away but it’s starting to look like film is gonna be with us for a good while as well.
Actually, if you go to the site specified in the OP and scroll about two-thirds of the way down, there’s a link leading to 40 independent record stores that are still open.
So 40 closed and 40 open. The point is, you can kind of make it as a record store owner these days, sort of, maybe…but I’m probably not gonna open one anyway.
Those pix are indeed sad. I know I patronized at least 2 of them back when.
Is the demise of record stores due entirely to the availability of online music downloads? I can see the market for LPs and cassettes dried up long ago, but aren’t people buying and trading CDs anymore?
LONG LIVE AMOEBA!!!
Are tapes going to come back too?
I’m stocking up on wax cylinders now! They’ll be coming back soon too.
I’ve shopped at four of these stores.
I bet #31 would have been fun to shop at: a little storefront in a residential neighborhood, narrow aisles, creaking floorboards, idiosyncratic selection.
We had two really nice Camelot stores that closed about 12 years ago. I bought most of my music from them.
We had two independent records stores that also sold bongs and other paraphernalia. Always had incense burning in the store. They had a great selection of records. They eventually got closed because of a state law that prohibited selling the bongs. That was around 1992.
Actually, that’s one of the four I’ve been in. It was a long time ago - probably close to twenty years. My recollections were that it was very crowded and pretty dark. I didn’t buy any records but I did buy some old back issues of National Lampoon.
let’s be honest- the three in Detroit have been closed for decades, and closed because they’re in Detroit.