Pumps' Perplexities

It has been reported that Tower Records, a retail music chain,
will be going out of business due to poor sales of CDs.....It seems
the youth of today just want to buy one or two individual
recordings in stead of buying a "full album".....So what is new?...
Nothing......

In my 70 odd years, the first recorded music I remember
came on a 78 (RPM) record.....It had one song on one side
and one song on another side......You bought it as an individual
item......If you wanted to listen to a full symphony you had to
buy an "album book" which contained 3-4 records and you
listened to both sides in order to hear the full length of music....

This annoyance was solved with the invention of the
33-1/3 (RPM) record which held 1/2 hour of music on one
side of a record......But, it seems that back in the '60s the kids
did not want to buy the whole "album" when all they wanted
was only one or two songs.......Alas, along came the 45 (RPM)
record......One song on one side and one song on the other......
Sound familiar.....

Next innovations in recorded music were the 8 Track Cartridge,
then the Cassette and finally now the CD......All methods
contain 10 to 20 recordings.......It is no wonder that this
current generation wants the same thing it's parents and
grand-parents had - just buy one song or two songs that you
like and not a full collection......The Ipod and its storage
of 99 cent songs seems to "fit the bill".......

I wonder if Tower Records would have stayed in business
if you could have gone into their store and just bought one
or two songs for your Ipod?......Pumps