Is the Day of the Vinyl Record Numbered?

The music story for 2007, in cities and towns around the world record shops are going out of business. Is this the Vinyl Countdown? Once giant retail outlets are now becomming main street corner stores and the traditional music retail business is in serious trouble with no quick-fix solution. In the US, Tower Records closed all of its 89 shops at the end of last year. While Tower franchises still operate in Japan, Mexico and some cities in Europe, stores have been closing almost as soon as they are opening. The 89 shops stripped bared of all fixtures and fittings in the Us now await new tenants who are highly unlikely to sell music of any kind.

The new environment in the music industry not to produce vinyl's had already lead to thousands of music shop casualties. Be it the closure of stores, the downsizing by closing some outlets or the laying off of staff, the retail sector in the vinyl trade is in a state of considerable flux. One of the biggest factors in knowking the record store from its perch has been the customers moving to buy both physical and digital music online, with all the price savings and convenience this bring. Price competition between major supermarket chains is cited again and again by music retailers as a major cause for condern.

What is very clear is that the music consumption itself has not declined if anything it has increased. This is solely down to people buying music via mobile phones or for digital music players. The music retail sector has been very slow to adjust to changes in the market however the pressure on every front is beginning to tale it's own story. It seems that the only way to save our precious Vinyl is for the music industry to realize that they have to lower their prices to compete, give smaller record stores special discounts and think speciality stores for the future.

My Vinyl are like my kids. It sounds different, it has a life of it's own, it is more personal than downloading from the internet. I enjoy going into record stores and selecting music, searching through the stock and trying to come up with a little gem. It was a day out, an experience, a chance to talk to people who were like minded musically, and now with the downfall of Tower last year it seems that the we are in the last few years of THE VINYL COUNTDOWN.