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The day the music died...

By
MIKE FARRAGHER
,
IrishCentral.com Staff Writer
Published Monday, April 13, 2009, 1:39 PM
Updated Thursday, July 23, 2009, 5:30 PM
Read more: County Galway, Virgin Retail Ltd., Classic Rock, Entertainment, Music, Pop and Rock Music, Apple iPod


The Virgin Megastore in Times Square
The Virgin Megastore in Times Square

With the announcement last week that the Virgin Megastores in Union Square and Times Square are closing, it’s now easier to find an albino rat on the streets of Manhattan than it is finding a store that sells compact discs. 

It’s the same scenario over in Ireland.  I was there in September, and the HMV stores in Galway and Limerick devoted more space to iPod accessories and DVDs, with only a small section of the store dedicated to the CD. At Zhivago Records in Galway, there was a fire sale to clear the CD inventory in an attempt to make room for more profitable music-themed souvenirs.  

I know there are some of you out there reading the first paragraph and thinking that I am hanging onto these audio fossils known as compact discs. Nothing could be further from the truth.  With over 50,000 songs taking up 250GB on my portable hard drive, it is safe to assume that I have successfully made the transition to digital technology. 

That said, these store closures make me present to the fact that I can also be blamed for throwing a shovel of dirt on the record store, and for that I am consumed with grief. This store is going out of business because I put it out of business, plain and simple.

The sense of impending loss has gotten so bad that I have visited the Virgin Megastore three times in the last week alone and have left each time with a bag full of CDs and hundreds of dollars charged to my debit card. 

T Rex. Thin Lizzy. James Brown. Toots and the Maytals. ABBA (don’t judge: guilty pleasure). Jaco Pastorious. Black Eyed Peas. I am buying these relics at the fire sale price of $10 per CD as an act of penance for the digital sins of the past that sit on my hard drive. 

Of course, none of this makes sense.  I will load these CDs into my disc drive and transfer the songs to my iPod before putting the plastic relics on the shelf to collect dust. 

But as I prowl the aisles of the Virgin Megastore, I get swept up in the energy from the DJ booth and am stricken with a profound sadness for my own children.  It is entirely feasible that they will have no memory of shopping in a music store. 

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