This recent Tower Records opened the public's eyes towards how volitile the state of music retail is at this time. Many are quick to state that digital downloading, legal or illegal, have been the main cause to the demise of music sales. Maybe it was a contributing factor towards Tower Records' demise, but there has to be a deeper problem to this issue that no one bothered to fix over the years.

First of all, the major retail chains had been overcharging the public for years, going as far as $22 per CD at times. Before online retail such as Amazon.com came into existance, physical retail stores like Tower could get away with prices like that. But now, they were unable to adapt with the times, and the adjusting came a bit too late, and financial woes hit them in large loads at a time, and facing bankruptcy at least three different occassions. This latest one killed Tower Records, marking an end of an era.

On the other hand, bigger chains such as Best Buy, Wal-Mart and Target stores have been selling music for moderate prices, for those who want to get their music while shopping for other items all at the same time. The common complaint is that stores like these do not carry specialized music such as jazz, reggae, or punk rock beyond what the mainstream music consumers would buy, and can become a turnoff to that cross section of the consumers.

Overcharging for music, much like anything, is not the right way to go about things. But now, digital downloading is the new way for people to get their music. Outlets like ITunes have kept the public up to date on their favorite music without a hard drive full of viruses, courtesy of the illegal download sites. They charge $.99 per song and is viewed as the future of the music industry. Fans getting what they want for a reasonable price.

Is downloading the way future generations will be exploring their music? It will be one way they will doing it, but retail stores will never completely disappear. People will always have a need to consume physical items, and downloading will not fulfill that need. Eventually when storm is calmed down, there will be a new breed of retail stores that is not monopolized by Best Buy, Target or Wal-Mart. People will want to own the actual product, much like when big brother or sister owned the actual album of an artist that turned you onto music ages ago.

The demise of Tower Records will hopefully open eyes and make the public aware of what they are losing. Maybe something positive will come out of this.