The day Virgin Megastores died
Posted
Jun 15 2009, 05:18 PM
by
Catherine Holahan
Rating:
The music has officially stopped playing at
Virgin Megastores. The last of the iconic record shops closed today, June 14. The
New York
Times, present for the last day of business at the chain's landmark store
in Union Square, described the
closing as "particularly dispiriting."
That's putting it mildly. Sure, it's not as
though the demise of Virgin Megastores is surprising. Record stores have long
struggled for relevance in a digital age defined by à la carte downloads and
illegal file-sharing sites. Even the music discovery part of the record store experience
-- long touted by store owners as what would keep people coming into their
shops -- has largely been usurped by ad-supported music blogs and MySpace
pages.
But Virgin Megastores' closing is more than another
example of consumers pushing aside an old distribution model for a newer,
more-immediate one. It is a symbol of the inability of the music industry as a
whole to successfully adapt its business for digital consumers. As such,
Virgin's closing is downright depressing.
The music industry is still in a sorry
state. True, the record labels are no longer aggressively suing high-schoolers
for "stealing' digital albums from file-sharing sites while steadfastly
refusing to make music available online. The labels now sell music through a
plethora of Web stores including Apple's iTunes
and Amazon.
And, to their credit, they have made many songs available without the clunky
digital rights management software that unwittingly frustrated paying customers
at the same time that it provided those who stole music with a thin justification
for not paying.
But, despite all this, the record labels
are still heavily reliant on the dying compact disc to fund their operations. About
84% of all music sales in 2008 were CDs. That's an improvement from 2006 when
more than 90% of the business was due to physical disc sales. But CDs still
compose far too large a portion of revenues, underscoring the labels' inability
to replace physical disc sales with growing download sales. Annual music sales
in the U.S. are projected to decline by nearly $1 billion in the next four
years, according to Forrester Research.
The record industry is trying out some new
business models that executives hope will get the industry growing again. Last
year, all four major labels - Sony BMG, Warner Music
Group, Universal and EMI -- struck a partnership with MySpace music that
enables them to make money from online advertisements as well as music sales.
Labels such as Warner Music Group's Atlantic Records now sell advertising on
artist Web sites as well.
But these new models have yet to truly take
hold. And, until they do, every record store closing serves as a painful reminder
of the present condition of major record labels.
In memory of Virgin Megastores, with
apologies to Don McLean:
A long long time ago . . .
I can still remember
going to the Virgin Record store.
And I knew if I had the clams
that I could buy the latest jams
And over the song titles I would pore
But summer '09 made me colder,
the business model was much older
than most music buyers.
They wouldn't kick the tires.
I can't remember when I switched
and to Apple's iTunes became affixed.
I didn't shop there I confide
the day the music died.
So bye-bye Virgin Records, good-bye
we don't go to your stores no more
thus your passing was nigh
And music lovers will give a sad sigh
Saying this'll be the day Virgin dies.
This'll be the day Virgin dies.
Related
Reading:
Audible
purchase pits Amazon squarely against Apple
Would
you pay for unlimited iTunes?
Apple
rolls out new iTunes pricing
Apple's
iron-clad hold over the music industry
