Changing Times

Tower Records, which has sold music and movies for generations and is nothing less than a Los Angeles institution, will be closing its doors in a few weeks. It's the victim of changing times, in which music is mostly sold digitally online, and movies are coming up right behind. Most major record stores have closed up or cut back dramatically, so it really is no surprise. In fact, though I think there are many who feel a tinge of regret, the closing of these stores are being met with a collective shrug. They were cool places to go, especially for those generations that learned about music by wandering up and down those aisles - but they're not reflective of how we - and especially kids - live today. "Record" stores (true vinyl records went by the wayside a long time ago), when you can find them, will join butcher shops, dry goods stores and blacksmith shops in the category of rare historical throwbacks.

We are still in the infancy of the information ago - and still undergoing the transformations that will make this new era as removed from the recent past as we are from the 1700's.