http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicbl ... nistration

I buy online simply because it's cheaper and there is so much music that I want to buy. On iTunes and at Amazon, most albums are $9.99 (US dollars) and many are $7.99 and some are $12.99. In the old days we paid $17.00 plus tax for CDs.

Now, I BUY online and I believe in supporting artists. I'm still old school in that I nearly always buy full albums and listen to them as full albums.

I don't buy this argument that mp3 sound quality is bad. With a good pair of headphones or good system, I am hearing things I never heard on whatever system I had in the 80s and 90s. I really enjoy listening to stuff from my collection on my good headphones and hearing things I never heard the first time around. (Bowers & Wilkins P5s -- I COMPLETELY recommend them).

Yep...after many years of resisting, I became an iPod person. I have acquired so much music (usually for $9.99 an album, no tax) over the past 2 years that it's not even funny.

I also use Pandora a lot, to discover new bands, but I'm talking about when I buy. Will these kids today even buy anything in the future? Every single song ever recorded is on youtube for free, often with good sound quality. But one still needs an internet connection to hear it. I still prefer to *own* music in my collection on my hard drive.

I buy the odd CD, the last 2 at HMV. Glad I used up that gift card!

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I forgot to add that, when I remember to do it, I buy CDs on ebay. Every CD ever released is available on ebay for between $1.00 (one US dollar) and $7.00 (7 US dollars), shipping included, no tax.

Like someone said with Fender guitars, Fender's biggest competition for selling new Fender guitars is used Fender guitars. I would say the same thing about CDs. The biggest competition for CDs, at least albums that have been out a while, is used CDs on ebay for one dollar.

For some reason I sometimes forget this bit of knowledge for months at a time, but when I remember it, I go on ebay binges and get 10 old albums for a total of about 20 bucks.

Now, I'll admit that buying used CDs is not supporting the artist. Fender guitars and CDs are two (rare) things that actually hold their value so well that the original seller gets ripped off. Think about it. $15 for a CD that can last 100 years. $800 for a Fender guitar that can last 60 years. Or at least 20 good years. Barring abuse, you can get a solid American Standard tele or strat that's 5 or 8 or 15 years old and it works exactly as it did when it was new.

I almost always buy CD's. Only if it's only one song I'm after will I buy from Itunes. I enjoy having the physical disk and library, I enjoy flicking through the book, i enjoy browsing the aisles for new ones.

It's really sad that this is happening. I hope that they find a buyer and things will turn around but it doesn't look likely. Where I stay there is only one other music store and that is a locally owned one. Surprisingly it actually does o.k due to loyal locals.

I don't think the artist makes much or anything off CD sales these days. They make their money on tours and with other merchandise.

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You could always buy your CD's at Walmart!

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I think that most discerning music fans would say 'Tusk' is the legendary F.Mac album, more so than 'Rumours'. Real snobs would go for 'Kiln House' of course.

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Vietnam tour operators-Sapa trekking-Emotion cruise

i think its the Itunes generation that are killing off music stores.

a local shop to me, thats been open as long as i can remember, recently shut. he weas awesome. you could get rare stuff ordered in, he always had a supply of various vinyls, would sometimes get signed stuff in. would always give away the promotional posters and advertising once hed finished with it. and if you knew the release date of an album, you could always go in 3 or 4 days before hand and get one from him.

now HMV has gone aswell, ok so not the most serious of music shops, considering it stocked all sorts of stuff, but the sheer size of the shops near me meant that you could always go in and find something you want that you havnt got.

i love having a big stack of cd's and vinyl. i like the books, i like the artwork, and above all i like to feel ive spent my hard earned on SOMETHING decent.

something other than a computer file.

today some friends on facebook were bitching about how HMV is shutting. i asked them of the last 10 albums they brought how many came from HMV. they all said none of them. then i asked them who they thought the problem was

I was a victim of the demise of the CD. In 2007 I was the manager of a CD /DVD store called Music World. There was only one other CD store in the mall where I worked. The mall admin told our head office that there would be no more CD stores to open in that mall. Low and behold, they lied and shortly after, an HMV opened up. They were given a prime location in the mall and it put the other 2 CD stores out of business. I was laid off for 6 months, until I found my current job. I started at $5 more an hour than I made managing the CD store, and now I make twice what I made as a manager.
I guess for me it was a blessing in disguise.

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Hi moochy: as it happens, I finally found myself rebelling against the evil grasp of Amazon in the last few months and made sure I did all my Christmas shopping elsewhere (which I calculate in December cost them about £700/$1100 in lost sales to me). As part of that I shopped at HMV in the centre of London ("the world's biggest record shop", for what it's worth). First time in there for about a year - I'd almost forgotten the enjoyment of browsing through acres of physical CDs, instead of pages on a website. I got some good customer service too, which helped.

News this evening is that HMV is likely to continue, albeit with a lot of long-overdue financial and commercial restructuring. That's partly because aspects of he core business are reportedly still surprisingly strong and partly because the music industry is desperate to keep some sort of mainstream realworld footprint and so is being supportive: they don't want to find themselves utterly at the mercy of Amazon, iTunes and the supermarkets.

Apparently the larger part of the home UK business is likely to survive. But I've heard nothing about the future of the overseas divisions.

Cheers - C

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That's not what they said on the news this evening! They said that all the stores would stay open until they tried to find a buyer to purchase the business. Even if that works out they reckon that many of the shops will still have to shut.

Parts of the business are still strong? games mainly. They're doing ok in that realm. But as far as music then no they're doing very badly. Sign of the times. I'm actually surprised there's any record shops left. The customer has been getting ripped off for years with the price of CD's which are cheap to produce. Yet the prices never came down much to reflect that or to encourage more business.

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Luck won't do it and ignorance can't

George Van Eps.

Welcome to the Forum mcloren. Music lovers paradise, from a Fender point of view. Have fun here we like you already

Fleetwood Mac for me would be the lovely voice, clever lyrics, passionate playing, heartbeat, of Mystery To Me. The bands 8th studio album.

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you can save the world with your guitar one love song at a time it's just better, more fun, easier with a fender solid body electric guitar or electric bass guitar.

I buy CD because i like collecting things xD

While we're complaining about the iTunes generation killing off high street CD vendors, isn't the obvious next step the death of the high street musical instrument shop?

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my stuff on soundcloud