I remember when the Virgin Megastore opened in New York City in 1992, and kicked Tower and HMV in the hind, as promised. Still, for the rest of the decade there was no shortage of large chain record retailers where someone with passing interest could go to the customer service desk, hum a tune they heard on the radio, and have have the clerk know the song and album every time. Well kids, with the last two major record chain outlets in America closing down, those days are very over.
The sounds of the Velvet Underground echoed in the Virgin Megastore in Union Square on Sunday afternoon, as bargain-hunting passers-by and hard-core music shoppers poked through what few items remained at the last large-scale record store in New York City.
It was the final day of business for the Virgin Megastore chain in North America, which at its peak had 23 locations but by Sunday was down to two: the 57,000-square-foot, two-level New York outlet, and a smaller Hollywood shop that was also set to close. In Union Square posters trumpeted 90 percent discounts and offered the sale of “all furniture and equipment.” But when the store opened, perhaps 90 percent of the merchandise had already been sold, leaving two tables of CDs and DVDs, a dozen T-shirt racks and a few other scattered displays.
With the music industry stuck in a decade-long crisis, the sight of a record store closing is hardly surprising. But for many shoppers at Union Square on Sunday the loss of a big outlet in one of the most heavily trafficked areas of the city was particularly dispiriting.
The Who Killed Record Retail whodunit has of course been done to death, but in case you missed it, iTunes, Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Napster, nefarious teens, major labels, indie labels, MySpace and the Freemasons (probably) have something to do with it, depending on who you ask. Still, lots of tears get shed over the loss of one independent record store after another, but the chains (except for the Tower Records on Sunset Blvd, rest her soul) have disappeared with little mourning, usually because each one of them knocked out a store that someone liked better.
Nonetheless, pour some of your forty on the ground for the onetime behemoth where I bought Foo Fighters' "The Colour and the Shape" and Ice-T gave me props for being 14 and listening to the Dead Kennedys. What's my bittorrent password again?
