Whatever happened to record stores?
Yes I know CDs replaced vinyl years ago. But there was a time when these record stores were still around but we’re selling mostly CDs after the decline of vinyl records.
Does everyone just download music off the internet nowadays?
Not me - I still spin the vinyl discs.
There is an interesting bit in the movie “The Social Network” about the beginnings of Facebook.
Mark Zuckerberg and his business partner (forget the name, played by Andrew Garfield) are starting to take off and they are invited to lunch by Sean Parker, a young entrepreneur who started Napster. Played by Justin Timberlake.
Zuckerberg and Parker instantly connect, but business partner Garfield does not like Parker at all and they continually jab at each other over dinner.
At one point, Parker tells the story of Napster, the lawsuits, and judgment against him and notes that in the end, “We won”.
Garfield says, “Wait a minute, wait a minute. You won? The judgment was against you. You owed millions of dollars. How, exactly, did Napster win?”
Parker says, “When was the last time you were in a Tower Records?”
Streaming killed music on physical media. Napster won. At least the business model won. That means iTunes won because they followed the model and avoided lawsuits.
I buy everything off the internet.
Pretty much, yeah.
A couple years ago, I was at a friend's house; he had a USB turntable for playing vinyl LPs.
I tried to cue up a track by hand and eye, and immediately discovered that I couldn't see the spaces between the tracks. So I tried just getting the needle to land on the outermost cueing band, and found that my hand wasn't nearly delicate enough to accomplish this either. After 40+ years of zero practice, my ability to do this simple task was completely gone.
They watch youtube.
Anyway, the wife’s story sounds pretty con-VEEEN-yent! She been questioned? I mean, really questioned, like they do on TV?
But my real question is if this guy was so wealthy, why was he living in bloody Sacramento?!?
“Does everyone just download music off the internet nowadays?”
Most folks buy their CDs from Amazon. It’s the best selection in the world.
Drive up to Amoeba Records in Hollywood. You can spend hours in there. Sounds and smells like our childhoods.
If it hasn’t been mentioned already, let me recommend the documentary “All Things Must Pass”, covering the rise and fall of Tower Records.
Kind of a waste of money because today, I have everything on MP3 or streaming and my CDs are all in cardboard boxes in the basement, hopefully not getting wet.