Its hardly news nor a surprise that the download would lead to the demise of the record store, but the reality of it happening so soon is a surprise to me.

HMV is to close 60 of its UK stores over the next 12 months, of course we have already seen the grizzly deaths of their counterparts; MVC, Woolworths and Zavvi. Spokesmen of HMV has stated that it suffered a ten percent drop in sales over Christmas and by closing stores they hope to control their costs more efficiently, the say the move comes as a result of “challenging trading conditions” and the recent bad weather.

I suppose the snow can do funny things to people. Last year when it snowed the sales of bottled water shot right up. I don’t know what people thought would happen, that maybe we would be stranded in an arctic wasteland surviving of our bottled mineral water. If that were the case would not a steamy cup of Holicks provide more heat and comfort? I digress. The facts are, that by being able to buy online, the sales of music in shops has dropped.

The merits of buying online are obvious, for one you can do it at work. The odd squinty face conveying concentration, mixed with impassioned flourishes of typing and your co-workers will happily believe you are hard at it. In reality you have just ordered some cut price DVD’s from Play dot com. I once knew a man who used to order his CDs online due to his being embarrassed of his taste in music. Certainly there was a palatable presence of music snobbery when you did dare ask a sales assistant for any help. Often the employers of HMV seemed to fall within the stereotypical parameters of those who coveted ‘indie’ music above all other genres. The words ‘R’n’B compilation’ are met with as much distain as the most descriptive of swear words. This being the case it is understandable that my muscular six foot friend decided he would feel more at ease buying his best of the Sugababes album over ‘tinternet.

Then there is price. It is cheaper to buy online. No argument, there is even a dramatic price difference between the same products found within a HMV store than compared to the HMV website.

Then with the coming of iPods and other MP3 players, the nature of how we interacted with music changed considerably. The bulky Walkman and portable CD players had thankfully been replaced with an item with which one could easily fit into their pocket.

We still needed the discs though, so that we could sit there and laboriously import them into our computers. But then once we all started to buy docking stations, it was then often the case that we would simply select a playlist or track list from our MP3, instead of riffling through piles of CDs, when providing a sufficient sound track to a house party. This being the case people’s fondness of the physicality and special requirements of owning an actual CD started to wane.

I have personally moved house twice in as many years and rarely find myself looking through my selection of CDs other that when I painstakingly boxed them up. This then lends itself to people simply buying or stealing tracks online and downloading them directly into their music libraries or iPhones. But there is, as in all things, a counter-argument to all of this. For one thing, quality.

I have not a discerning ear, but there are those of you out there that do. Those of you who have more than one speaker attached to your music players and might even go to the effort to arrange them around the room as to get the right ambient acoustics. This being the case it is very much worth keeping in mind that the sound quality of a CD still outweighs that of a download. Another downside to purely digitally-sought music is that there is no physical redundancy in place. Should you lose your iPods and computers, that’s it – you are left to start over. Bulky as it may be, having a solid item in the world that contains music can be a real blessing.

On a more creative front, the merits of keeping a recorded work whole are worth considering. If you buy an album you will inevitably hear tracks laid down by your chosen recording artist which will not be released as a single. More than that, many albums are recorded with themes and skits that run throughout. It is very much the case that an album of a certain time is telling of a certain moment in that person’s life. So to simply download a song here and there is akin to only buying one or two chapters from a person’s auto-biography. We have, of course, always had the option to buy singles in CD-form but you would at least get the B-side (showing my age) to tempt you into perhaps procuring the album at a later date. Pink Floyd famously took their record label EMI to court, outraged that their tracks were being sold on a singular basis, as the band had stipulated that their music would have to be sold as whole works (albums) unless they had given their express permission. A judge agreed, saying the contract contained a clause to “preserve the artistic integrity of the albums”.

Speaking of art, there is also something wonderful about album art work, not just the square avatar that represents the CD on your MP3 but the whole thing, the fold out, the inlay, the words of thanks and in the case of Katy Perry (now Brand) the scent of strawberries.

For all my resistance towards the online world and my resilient belief that there is a wholesome quality to going to a specialist shop for a speciality item, I will myself still buy my CDs from an online vendor – because I cannot ignore the monetary benefits. This being said, I can’t help but think it’s a shame. Soon all the record shops will be gone. All the bookshops will be gone. Oxford Street will become nothing more than a massive avenue-long Tesco’s store, selling everything and everything. The glamour and frivolity of holding a multitude of different carrier bags will be lost, but I guess if nothing else my Clubcard points will be through the roof.