Fox 411 gossip Roger Friedman has a crackpot idea for stopping the tide of record-store closings, and he can at least blame some of the genesis for it on the guy who helped shepherd Michael Jackson's career back in the day: "Frank DiLeo, Michael Jackson's former manager, recently suggested that the labels get together and open a 'state' store, one in each big city, to carry their catalogs and new releases. It's not a bad idea. Otherwise, the record industry will soon have no public face at all." Well, first of all, the record industry does have a public face—although it resembles that of a snarling, wild-eyed lawyer—and second of all, I don't know if a "state-run" store where only product from and distributed by the major labels would really help that perception so much, given that said idea is pretty much in line with the "bumbling cartel" front they're currently presenting to the world. (Although I have to admit that watching it get launched would probably be great fodder for future blog posts.) [Fox 411 via Coolfer]
Shocking News: Record Stores Keep Closing
Not entirely surprising, but college-area record stores are closing left and right. So, what's supposed to be our reaction to this sort of news these days?
Virgin announced its plans to close two of its megastores—one in Chicago (pictured), and one in Salt Lake City—over the weekend, citing the two locations' lack of profitability. At the same time, it announced that it would be opening a new, more modest store in California, and that it was scouting locations for more stores in California and New York:
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We here at Idolator poke enough fun at the major labels' and retailers' ham-handed approach to selling music in the digital age (and deservedly). But it's hard not to feel a little sorry for them sometimes. Case in point: the 2007 edition of the National Association of Recording Merchandisers convention—i.e., the annual confab of music-store operators, and the companies that love, service, and cling to them for dear life.
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Today's bit of surprising news in music retail: The CEO of the the London-based online merchant Caiman—which now owns all the branding related to the liquidated record-store behemoth Tower Records—has announced that his company will revive the brand, even opening (gasp!) a few brick-and-mortar record stores:
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The Dangerfieldian profile of the brick-and-mortar music business is getting bigger, as Wal-Mart—the No. 1 music retailer in the US, as far as units sold—has decided to cut CD shelf space in about 500 of its stores next month, according to Kings Of A&R. Wal-Mart is planning to use the freed-up space to stock iPod accessories, because to consumers, a pink leather carrying case that's going to get scuffed and ripped in two weeks is worth a lot more than a silly song or two or thousand. While some may be surprised at Wal-Mart's move, given their position in the music-selling hierarchy, we're not too shocked; any company that places ads on file-sharing sites has to at least be somewhat aware of the way the music-acquisition experience is heading these days.
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Factory Records founder Tony Wilson has an article about the demise of record stores and the reasons for their descent into obscurity—crappy packaging and greedy executives, of course, being at the forefront. It's a good piece, but then he shoots it all to hell by turning it into an ad for the 
Yesterday, we were peppered with e-mails about the Definitive 200, a list of albums that share the common trait of being bought by a lot of people. But as we found out this morning, this list is more than an opportunity for bloggers to moan about Supernatural's popularity—it's a marketing ploy!
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Russ Solomon, the founder of Tower Records, isn't going to let bankruptcy, liquidation, and a very soft album-sales market get him down. Instead, he's preparing to open a record store in a site that housed a Tower for 40 years:
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Over the weekend, the Tennessean looked at FYE, the indecipherably named entertainment chain that's taken over a large number of Tower Records' old locations. If you've ever wondered just what FYE means, you're apparently not in the chain's target demographic:
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The folks over at Stylus are performing a public service this week with their comprehensive overview of independent record stores around the world. The nostalgia-tinged intro to the list made us look back fondly on the shops that molded us into the music geeks we are today (big ups to Ardmore, Pa.'s Repo Records and Hicksville, N.Y.'s NYCD!), and the ones that sustained our used-CD buying habits, like the soon-shuttering Spaceboy Music in Philadelphia. Surely this list can't cover every worthwhile institution, so take a look at it and let us know what they missed.
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