March 02, 2004Is the Music Store Over?The big CD retail chains may have only a few more years before the downloading craze buries them. They can survive, but only by becoming like no store you've seen before. You can forgive the chaotic, run-down atmosphere when you walk into Tower Records on Broadway and West Fourth Street in Manhattan. You don't even mind all those SpongeBob action figures and Beatles lunch boxes -- hey, the music industry's in a slump, and these guys are just trying to pay the rent. But when you pick up The Essential Bruce Springsteen, your temperature starts to rise. You should be ecstatic at the discovery of 12 new releases by the Boss, but instead you're furious: You can't buy them unless you shell out $25.99 for the entire three-CD set that includes 30 "career-spanning classics" that you already own from his other hit records. Why should you have to pay for all those songs twice?
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