Are the days of the music store behind us?

Here in Montgomery, we are losing two more music stores as the Montgomery Mall and Eastdale Mall Sam Goody stores are closing. By my count, that leaves three here in town. Once chain; two independents.

I've lived in Montgomery for almost four years. In that time, we've lost Blockbuster Music and Coconut's.

Now, the going-out-of-business sales are good. You can get a lot of cheap CDs. But it also limits the options for music lovers in the area. And I'm all about options. Besides, from an economic standpoint, stores opening are better than stores closing, right?

Anyway, stores are going away. The question is why?

The easy answer might be iTunes. I mean, shoot, they've sold more than 1 billion songs off the iTunes Web site. That's GOT to be cutting into the bottom line, right?

I think another reason is the Big Box stores. It seems Best Buy, Circuit City and Wal-Mart have all upped their musical presence in the past few years. They can probably sell at a lower cost because of their iventory.

All of these stores and more have Web sites, too (with no 10 percent sales tax).

Then there's Amazon.com and the list goes on....

Maybe it's just a corporate thing. Maybe our stores just don't perform well. Hey, if our music stores aren't earning money, can you really blame someone for closing them down. We all want our own businesses to make money, right?

I still miss the stores when they close though. Sure, we all buy stuff of the Web. And we all want the best deal on our purchases, so the Big Boxes may be the best bet.

I guess I just want as many stores around as I can get. I still occasionally run out to a store to buy a disc of a song I just heard on the radio. I like flipping through the CD rack. I guess I'm a very tactile person. I want to get my hands on things. I also want it fast. Ordering off the Web takes too long.

And I like liner notes. You don't get those on iTunes.

Maybe I'm just getting old. I'll stop now before I start saying "back in my day......"

Glory days
They'll pass you by
Glory days
In the wink of a
young girl's eye
Glory days
-- Bruce Springsteen