Last week it was announced that Tower Records, the largest music retailer in the country, would begin its going-out-of-business sales and close its 89 nationwide locations by the end of the year. Tower's closing will leave Virgin Megastores as the largest chain of record stores with its whopping 20 locations.

It's been a long time since Tower Records was actually a cool place to be, but this is still a sign of the constant flux of the music industry. Digital music sales are up 11 percent, but overall music sales are down 4 percent, leaving places like Tower or Virgin out in the cold.

There's no motivation for consumers to walk or drive to record stores and buy CDs when they can just jump on their computers and download new albums to put on their mp3 players.

This seems to hold especially true in State College. Arboria Records, which was a mainstay of the music scene here since the late '70s, closed this summer. That left City Lights Records, 316 E. College Ave., as the only record store left in town.

Some rumors have owner Greg Gabbard closing his doors to the public in the not-too-distant future.

Meanwhile, sites like MySpace and PureVolume have artists throwing away the physical aspect of music. It's cheaper to put a song up on the Web than to press it to wax or burn a disc and ship it out to the record stores.

Seemingly, there is no issue here for music fans. It's cheaper, easier and faster for them. But what about the art of the album? With digital music, there are no album covers, no liner notes, no jewel cases. Without those media, we wouldn't have the image of The Beatles walking across Abbey Road. We wouldn't have Andy Warhol's yellow banana on the stark white background of The Velvet Underground and Nico. We wouldn't have the baby swimming for a dollar bill on Nevermind.

And while downloading music might be cheaper, easier and faster, it's not nearly as satisfying as walking into a record store, browsing the aisles and walking out with a few new purchases. Nothing is a better pick-me-up for a music fan than a trip to the record store.

Alas...

It seems buying music in a physical form is a dying trend. Through the years in the music industry, the easy way has almost always won over the quality way. Along with trips to the record store, it seems the art of making an album will die as well.

Artists can't make money from selling a whole album for 10 dollars when consumers are perfectly content with simply buying the singles for a buck apiece.

Like the pre-Pet Sounds era, the music industry is moving back into a singles market and away from albums. Look for compilations, singles and maybe even EPs to dominate mainstream music in the coming years, with albums left in their wake.

That's not necessarily a bad thing--some of the best songs ever made pre-dated the album rock of the late '60s. Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley, and most Motown artists made a living by putting out hit song after hit song rather than spending all their time and money working on concept albums in the recording studio.

But while we may be able to look forward to some classic songs, music fans will have to prepare to say goodbye to beloved record stores.

As Bob Dylan, a man who made his fair share of classic albums, said, "Oh the times, they are a-changin'."