Westwood Village may be part of the city that gave rise to such
music industry giants as Capitol Records and Geffen Records, but in
recent years the Village’s music scene has taken a hit as
record stores have packed up and moved out.
Both record store owners and students attribute the
stores’ departures to the national decline in record sales,
and to the rise of digital music programs such as iTunes.
Ingrid Tejada, a second-year undeclared student, said she
downloads all her music from the Internet, so she had not noticed
the lack of record stores in Westwood.
“It’s not an issue for me,” she said. “I
just use my iPod all the time. I really don’t buy
CDs.”
The closures started with the chain stores. Tower Records and
Wherehouse Music Inc. shut their doors within weeks of each other
in 2003.
Toward the end, Tower, which had done business in Westwood for
28 years, changed its name to Pug’z Records in an attempt to
appeal to indie-music-oriented college students.
But Tower’s sales have been on the decline for several
years. On Aug. 21, the company filed for bankruptcy protection for
the second time in two years.
Independent music stores in Westwood met similar fates.
Rhino Records, which opened in 1973 in Westwood and eventually
spawned the record label of the same name, finally closed in
January 2006 because of plummeting record sales.
Ravi Dehar, a fourth-year English student, said he thought the
introduction of larger multipurpose retailers such as Best Buy into
the Westwood area may have contributed to the decline of smaller
music stores.
“Best Buy has a pretty good selection and good
prices,” he said, adding that he had noticed the lack of
independent music stores in the Village.
Tejada said she thought the advent of new technologies over the
past few years may also have had an impact on record store
business.
“Every other person I see has either their iPod or their
cell phone,” she said. “I rarely see anybody with a CD
player, so maybe that has something to do with it.”
Digital music sales worldwide have increased dramatically in
recent years. According to the International Federation of the
Phonographic Industry, global digital music sales totaled $1.1
billion in 2005, and estimated that sales in the United States
alone topped $503 million.
In 2004, digital music sales worldwide totaled just $400
million.
That does not include music downloaded for free through illegal
services such as Kazaa and LimeWire.
Rhino Records founder and owner Richard Foos told the Los
Angeles Times that he thought the closing of so many music stores
translated into a loss for the Westwood community.
“It was a very emotional decision, but this is where
it’s at,” Foos said. “Now in Westwood you have no
free-standing record stores. You have one of the largest colleges
in the country and no independent record store. That says a
lot.”
Some retailers said they thought the culture of Westwood Village
contributed to the music stores’ lack of success.
Steve Bicksler, the owner of Penny Lane, an independent record
store in that closed its Westwood location in 2005, blamed the
closure on a general decline in sales in the Village.
“We were looking for a rent decrease because the Village
has definitely declined in foot traffic and that has really
decreased sales,” he told the Daily Bruin in 2005. “We
just couldn’t continue to pay the bills there.”