Lynell George, senior writer at the LA TImes' West magazine, writes of her years spent in record stores in an op-ed titled "What I Learned at the Record Shop." Yet another record store eulogy at the LA Times, which has given a lot of ink to the passing of an era; LA has recently lost Rhino and Aron's, and the city's music afficianados are in a deep state of mourning.

"I invested in these places — not just money, but time. And then, like the changer arm lifting and the stereo switching off, my habits changed. I somehow slipped out of my routine. I eased up on my record store fetish; I invested elsewhere.

And maybe that's why I didn't shed a tear or show up to mourn when Rhino Records and now Aron's (both long relocated from former addresses) began shutting their doors for good in the last few months. I'd already said my goodbyes — to old locations, to overpowering memories, to bins that had long since been picked over. I'd seen the shift coming, the back-stock thinning, all manner of new media — DVDs and DATs — taking up shelf space. I couldn't stomach the emptying bins, the death of an era.

It wasn't me that changed, it was the business model: a general slump in record sales (down 7% last year, according to SoundScan), a great big uptick in digital downloading, a rush to shop online. Statistics underscore what our eyes already tell us: The Amoebas stay in business, but there are only about half as many independent record stores as there were 10 years ago countrywide."

Previous Coolfer posts on LA record stores:

• Amoeba Expands While Aron's Closes
• The Further Decline of the Record Store