A few years ago on just one block of Chapel Hill's Franklin Street, the main drag in what's been called America's ideal college town, four or five such places catered both to locals and University of North Carolina students.

But with the demise of Schoolkids Records, the last one is gone. Schoolkids had planned to gut it out through March, but couldn't even make through its final week and shut down Saturday. It's just the latest victim in an industry hit by rising college-town rents, big-box retailers, high CD prices, and — most importantly — a new generation of college students for whom music has become an entirely online, intangible hobby they often don't have to pay for.

Chapel Hill is hardly alone. In recent years, perhaps hundreds of independent and small-chain record stores in college towns have shut down or consolidated as music downloading all but eliminated the demand for them.

In State College, Pa., Arboria and Vibes have closed. Iowa City, Iowa, used to have BJ's, Sal's Music Emporium and Real Records.

Boulder, Colo., has lost at least a half dozen — Cheapo Discs, All the Rage, Rocky Mountain Records and Tapes, and others. Albums on the Hill, a holdout across from the University of Colorado's campus, is down from 18 full-time employees to three part-timers.

In Tempe, the most recent incarnations of Arizona State University's area record stores are still around, although the on-campus store closed due to a fire in their building last year. Salt Lake City's Greywhale thrives next to the University of Utah, and continues to expand. Somehow, those stores manage to hang in there, while Chapel Hill's choices evaporate. Why? While in theory I'm pro-record-store-survival, we've probably all had the High Fidelity experience where the tastemaker turns into the snobbish gatekeeper of cool. Isn't it just easier to get your recommendations from the Web these days, and then make an instant purchase (or "purchase", as it were) from the keyboard? Is it OK for the market to shuffle out some of these stores? Will the kids be fine without a store within walking distance?

College-Town Record Stores Shuttering [AP]

According to VEG CEO Simon Wright, the Chicago store, which had an annual volume of $16 million, was never profitable due to high rent. In fact, the lease was to expire in 18 months and VEGNA probably would have been looking at even higher rent, so the chain was happy to jump at a chance to sell the lease to the Forever 21 clothing chain, Wright tells .biz.

Likewise, in Salt Lake City, the landlord exercised an option to terminate the current lease but would have allowed VEGNA to stay at a higher rent, which would have put the store into the red. So again, the chain decided to close.

Virgin's new store is a more modest affair—3,000 square feet, as opposed to the Chicago location's 50,000—and its location makes a lot more sense: It's at the Hollywood Bowl, which attracts people interested in spending money on music. We always enjoyed the theme-park-ishness of Virgin's stores, although since their splashy Stateside launch, some of the stores have become a little worse for wear (the downstairs area at the Union Square location in New York is a spaced-out mess); that the company is retrenching and looking for more "intimate" spaces is probably good for the chain's overall health, if not so great for the possibility of unearthing that import-only Radiohead single that you've been looking for since it came out in 1998.

Virgin To Close Two Stores, Open One [Billboard.biz]
[Photo via Virgin Megamagazine]

As you can imagine, the reports coming back from this year's NARM in Chicago are a bit like a wake where everybody's cheering each other up talking about what a full life the deceased had. According to HITS, NARM President Jim Donio tried to buck up the troops by "touting the fact that the convention had managed to maintain the same attendance from last year, posting some 1,200 people [despite] the loss of Tower, Musicland and Capitol Records." The kind interpretation: it is impressive that so many people in the industry are still standing. The cynical interpretation: where else are these folks gonna go?

What really makes our hearts bleed—well, a little—for these guys is, they really have no idea how to fix the business model, and for once, they're desperate enough to actually try. (We also feel naturally more sympathetic to the guys who sell the shiny discs, than the guys who make and manufacture the shiny discs—and still think they should cost nearly 20 bucks.) Then again, these are the people who brought you that campaign encouraging you to buy Paranoid again—and they're proud of it:

[NARM Board Chairman] Sue Peterson...spoke of the value of the Definitive 200 list that NARM promoted this year in an alliance with the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and congratulated UMGD's Jim Urie for coming up with the idea. She called it the most compelling NARM-backed campaign since the "Give the Gift of Music" campaign of the '80s.

Today's program consisted of the findings from a consumer survey about music that was, reportedly, about as enlightening as the Krusty the Klown Show's focus group on Itchy and Scratchy. HITS aptly summed up the results with, "The folks from [industry consultants] NPD still insist people like music, though they can't tell us why they're not buying more of it." According to the study, people still, y'know, like music. They—still—prefer CDs to digital downloads. They still learn about music from the radio. They tend to buy new discs when they're easy to find in the store.

Also, this just in: they perceive water as "wet" and "drinkable," and when they leave a record store, they prefer to carry their purchases in bags, rather than a pouch made from skinned goat udder.

NARM Day One [HITS]
NARM Special: NPD Survey Claims Music Still Desirable [HITS]

Online merchant Caiman Inc., which acquired the bankrupt Tower Records' logo, Tower.com and the company's intellectual property for $4.2 million in a March bankruptcy auction, has big plans for the brand.

That's the word from Caiman Inc. CEO Didier Pilon, who said he plans to relaunch Tower.com as well as open brick-and-mortar superstores in Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco within nine months. In fact, Pilon has turned to some experts to help revive the Tower brand, hiring former Tower purchasing executive George Scarlet as director of entertainment purchasing for the company and former Tower buyer Kevin Hawkins.

The company, which buys mainly from one-stops and some independent distributors, hopes to convert to buying direct from all independent distributors and the majors and, where appropriate, the labels themselves, sources said.

We're skeptical that this new Tower is going to launch in nine months (they'll need to buy back a lot of Field Mob CDs in a very short time), but we do, cautiously, think that the scaled-back superstore plan could work—after all, our earliest ventures to Tower came when the store was still something of a tourist attraction, thanks to its vaster-than-the-mall selection and urban location. We'll be watching this story, but for now, a suggestion for Pilon: If you can, get that Lincoln Center location before TJ Maxx does—after all, $29.99 shorts don't go well with operawear at all.

Caiman rebuilds Tower, plans superstores [Hollywood Reporter]

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.

KOAR Industry News [Kings Of A & R]

I was thinking about the best band in the world the other night. They're these young kids from St Albans just north of London and they are quite simply the best band in the world today. (By a fucking mile; and the last time I was wrong was when I gave Harvest a bad review in my university newspaper, which I regretted two weeks later and have agonised over ever since). I have not got an art judgement wrong since so you can believe me. I saw Enter Shikari live last October, before I got ill with cancer, and the sight of these boys on stage with 200 fifteen year old kids with glow-sticks and glow rings going fucking berserk was the most exciting thing I've seen since the early Sex Pistols gigs back in '76/7.

And as with any band who capture a new generational spirit, God has given them the gift of melody. I never understand how that comes about, but that's a different essay. This is about the return of the object, the creation of something that gives you your little bit of the group, "to have and to hold, from this day forth."

Someone in the UK has released a single on a USB and I was thinking about it. OK so you'll put a nice graphic on the USB, but can you go further?

I texted Ian, Enter Shikari' s manager, and suggested a release of the album on USB, but having the USB as a glow stick. I'd buy that for a dollar. I felt pleased with the idea and Ian said he's going to look into it.

Yes, that's right: Glow-stick USB drives. Whether or not they suffer the same fate as the Factory Egg Timer remains to be seen—perhaps if the glow sticks take off, Wilson can figure out a way to slap a USB drive on Linder Sterling's design and parlay that into some sort of licensing deal with The Cycles Page?

"Oh Lord, Leave Me Record Shops" By Tony Wilson [The Tripwire; HT Philebrity]
Earlier: The Joy Division Sneaker: For When You Want To Walk Away...In Silence

The National Assn. of Record Merchandisers and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame unveiled a list of 200 albums that belong in everybody's CD collection titled the Definitive 200 that will be used as a marketing tool at big box outlets (Wal-Mart, K mart, Best Buy), chain music shops (Virgin, Trans World outlets), indie CD stores (Cheap Thrills in new Brunswick, N.J.^*, J&R in New Yok, Newbury Comics in Boston, Zia in Phoenix, Ariz., and Waterloo in Austin, Texas) and online sites (Amazon, Overstock). Campaign is starting with 75 retailers signed up.

The list has the usual suspects — the Beatles' "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band," Pink Floyd's "Dark Side Of The Moon" and Michael Jackson's "Thriller" are the top three — but unlike most album lists, this one was compiled by retailers.

The goal, NARM president Jim Donio said at the ceremony in Capitol studio A, was "to highlight music that has enduring popularity among fans. This is to celebrate the album" in an era when downloads and sales of singles are beginning to decimate the classic album. (For the full list go to www.definitive200.com.)

Unlike lists compiled by critics, musicians, magazines or Web sites, the Definitive 200 is full of albums everyone has heard of and, instead of showing a historical bias, 81 of the discs were released between 1990 and 2004.

What makes us roll our eyes is the idea that this "campaign"—which seems to be, in sum, a slapped-together roll call of recent platinum albums and a bunch of standalone displays—will somehow invigorate record sales. There are two reasons that there's no way this will happen: First of all, most of the albums on the list have reached their sales-saturation point—and unless you're adding bonus discs, the "buy another copy of your favorite album" sleight-of-hand won't work, especially at stores like the Trans World outposts, which are still clinging to the idea that people want to shell out $18.99 for a CD. Second of all, why would merchandisers want to trick the few people who are still actually visiting record stores into buying Pieces Of You (No. 64) or Human Clay (No. 95)? Are they expecting a high proportion of sales from people who want to be on I Love The '90s IV, or are they really that backward-looking and clueless? Wait, don't tell us.

^* UPDATE: A bunch of commenters are informing us that Cheap Thrills is actually closed, and has been for years. Which, when you think about it, makes perfect sense, as far as the forward-thinking nature of this project.

Definitive 200 [Rockhall.com]
Classic albums celebrated [Variety]

The 81-year-old founder of Tower Records will open a record store in the old Tower building on Broadway at 16th Street in Sacramento, said Andy Gianulias, a member of the family that owns the property. Solomon signed a lease Thursday, Gianulias said.

The building was a Tower store for 40 years, closing when the legendary chain went out of business in late December, and sits across the street from the site where Solomon began selling records in 1941. Recently someone hoisted a banner on the building that reads, "Thanks Russ, you're still our hero."

The Tower patriarch raised the prospect of opening a small record store chain in October, a week after his beloved company was sold to a liquidating firm in a bankruptcy auction. He said he still thought there was a future for brick-and-mortar music retailing, even though the business has been written off by many experts as a dinosaur of the Internet era.

"I asked Russ, 'Why are you doing this at your age?' " Gianulias said. "He said, 'I believe in this.'"

The store—tentatively called Resurrection Records—is rumored to open in April; Solomon has signed a five-year lease on the site. We're wondering if, by some stroke of luck, the store will do well; the downscaling in scope may allow the store's buyers to calibrate inventory to the community's demands, and the area has been able to support one local mini-chain, Dimple Records; honestly, it's hard not to root for Solomon here, given that the alternative outcome for the site would have involved staging wrestler run-ins as a way to keep up community interest.

Tower founder trying for another go-round [Sacramento Bee, via Coolfer]

"The name f.y.e. — For Your Entertainment — says it all," [marketing director Barry] Burmaster said. "Our brand is about offering all kinds of entertainment products, not just music."

That's why, in addition to hosting a steady stream of in-store musical performances, f.y.e. also has scheduled events such as an appearance by members of Nashville-based Total Nonstop Action Wrestling, which airs on cable network SpikeTV.

There's a reason f.y.e. is interested in selling more than just music.

The company saw November and December same-store sales for music decline 12% compared with the same period the previous year.

"Holiday sales were disappointing and well below our expectations,'' Chairman and Chief Executive Robert Higgins said in a recent conference call.

While that downward sales trend echoes the rest of the record industry, it's hard not to think that there are two things preventing FYE from bringing new customers into its stores—the fact that its prices are substantially higher than those of its big-box competitors (a woman interviewed later in the article says that she buys all of her CDs at Target, where prices for major titles are frequently $3-$4 less than FYE's, and other titles are even more expensive) and the fact that, despite Burmaster's assertion, "FYE" is a terrible name. In a way, though, it's a feat: It's not every day that you run into an indecipherable acronym representing a phrase that makes even less sense to everyone who isn't employed by the letter-wielding company.

Tower's replacement puts music in racks and onstage [Tennessean.com]

Our Favorite Shop [Stylus]
[Image of Spaceboy Music from Spaceboy Music's MySpace page]