The End of the Music Store

Chris Anderson (author of “The Long Tail” and Wired bigwig) highlights news that Tower Records is on the way out.

Chris writes,

The once-proud Tower Records is now edging closer to the rocks, according to continued reports. The chain has been struggling with mounting debt, and major labels were recently forced to freeze shipments following various non-payments.

This is symptomatic of the failure of the entire music industry, from labels to retailers, to sense and respond to the disruptive shift that was Digital Music. 

Several months back, Piers Fawlkes over at PSFK commented on the closing of several large chains in Britain saying,

The concept of the mega-music store in its current form comes from a pre-digital era: pile it high, twist the arms of record companies to pay for placement, limit stock. The digital music revolution came and went and HMVs and Virgin Megastores remained largely unchanged.

The Long Tail: The end of the mass-market record store?

(Screencap taken from the Day of the Longtail video)