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Chicagoist is starting to think we're bad luck for business. First Carson's folded, but only the location we frequented. Then CompUSA pulled their plug, not just in Chicago, but half of their locations in the U.S. Now we've discovered that the Virgin Megastore on Michigan — a store we just visited yesterday — is going bye-bye. Seriously, we feel like we need an exorcism here.
Back to the issue at hand: Virgin will be closing their Chicago and Salt Lake City Megastores sometime in July. Business analysts and casual observers lay the blame on online download sites and music piracy. There're still plenty of locations to go around in the UK, but these will be the sixth and seventh closures in America, lowering the number of Virgins to 11. Some people would kill for 11 virgins, we know, but we won't get into that. The 40,000-square-foot space already has a new tenant lined up: Forever 21 (a moniker that always inspires abject depression in us), which will dub this larger store Forever XXI. Apparently two popular stores within a mile of each other wasn't good enough.
We suppose this isn't that big of a surprise. After all, Tower Records just bit it last December. What we find interesting is that the big chain stores are collapsing in on themselves, while there are still plenty of little independent stores around the city; Reckless just opened another location downtown on Madison. We supposed we're mostly to blame for stores like Virgin closing. We've taken to the Internet like a dog swimming in an Alpo river. And we only visited twice, and yesterday only on the way to check out if CompUSA was still open (it wasn't) ... but still, they were the only place we found the very same wonderful headphones we bought whilst in London. Maybe that tipped the cosmic scales and facilitated the closure. That makes us think ... time to start spending more time at Macy's.
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I'm gonna miss Virgin as they had a great World Music section and carried a somewhat slightly obscure selection in all genres as well.
But now I can't wait for the storewide clearances!!! I cleaned up at all the Tower stores when they went out of business ;)
What kind of headphones?
Well, there goes my only reason for visiting Michigan Ave. People who download music illegally deserve the tremendous fines they get.
mmart: earbuds with inline volume control. i picked up some sonys, MDR-E829V. i can't find the things anywhere else.
never been there and now i never will.
26 bucks for a cd! thanks virgin!
What should happen to the people who download music legally? Wouldn't their shift in purchasing procedures also have led to the downfall in the store?
Typical ... blame the pirates on bad business decisions. Music purchases were up over 19% from 2005, but not all of it was in physical form. This is no different than blaming oil prices on GM car sales -- hey, Toyota is selling more cars than ever -- and it sure as fuck isn't blaming the price of oil.
Maybe if Virgin didn't charge two arms and a leg for a CD, I might shop there.
If it is a rare CD, I will search a used CD store first and then eBay. If I can't find it at the used CD store, then I'll definately find it on eBay.
Out of all the places to have closed or changed hands recently, this is about the worst one for me, since i actually shopped there, in addition to buying songs online.
Virgin had a great import section and i think because of their international presence, you could often find a deal on some of the import CDs, like virgin's own compilations. I also think they had a great selection of dance and electronica, and i don't know how i'll keep up with those genres because i'm not quite hip enough to spend time in the CD/record stores that deal exclusively in dance/electronica. I also liked their book, dvd and clothing sections.
Virgin was just a fun place to spend a bunch of time, especially if you work near Michigan Ave. You could just listen to a bunch of stuff, look for deals, and if something you wanted was too expensive, well, then you go home and shop for it on itunes.
I would have thought/hoped that the tourists and downtown workers would have kept that store alive. And what's it being replaced by? Another clothes store with a narrow demographic? Just what we need. Yep, one less reason for me to venture down michigan ave. way.
Between this and CompUSA, how am I supposed to get my after work, impulse buy video game fix?
At least it's not a SuperMega Starbucks...
While Virgin was good, I'll miss Tower even more.
Virgin was great. A great place to kill time. Listen to some awesome music, discover new movies. They had a great international/foreign section as well as anime section. Also they managed to pull in big names for free in-store performances. More often than not off of their label. But it was still awesome to see a free show in there.
Guess I'll have to clean up like i did with Comp USA, and get some early X-mas shopping done.
But it really sucks that its leaving, I've been to the new Reckless and its NOTHING to brag about.
Virgin had so much shit I really wanted to buy. Imports, weird singles, all my weird brit bands who's albums don't even get released in the U.S, weird progressive rock stuff. Amazing.
...And at their prices, I couldn't afford a fucking thing. Most of it is the RIAA's fault and their whole price-fixing scam, but still.
I think the last thing I bought there I couldn't get anywhere else was the Blur singles box set that came out ... and that was years ago. The one thing Virgin was always good for was import singles, but now you donload those from any number of online stores for $0.99 a track so it seems pretty silly to pay ten bucks for three songs one one CD.
Only idiots buy CD's. There is this new technology called the "Internet", and you can listen to all the music you want for free.
tankboy wrote:
"Only idiots buy CD's [sic]."
Brilliant. Always a wise move to insult some of your readers.
comment #14 is tankboy; #15 is not.
Um, yeah, #14 is me, #15 is an impostor and I've adjusted his nom de plume to reflect that. I still buy CDs, for the record. Just picked up Gtaham Coxon's newest album yesterday even though I've had it digitally from when it was sent to me to review last year.
sorry, The Real Tankboy. let me amend my comment to reflect that 1) I still like Tankboy and 2) #15 is an idiot.
I'm half-loopy from popping allergy pills for the better part of the day and didn't notice the 'not.' Hope it doesn't affect my membership in the Chicagoist writers' fan club.
Some people DO kill for 72 virgins though!
I still buy CD's and DVD's and can download illegally if I choose to, but I'd rather have the real deal as I don't feel like I can appreciate it otherwise. But I rarely buy either one at Virgin
The answer? They were way too over-priced. It's a great store but their CD's and ESPECIALLY their DVD's are 200%+ what you can find them for online or even at Target. Also, there's really nothing new and exiting for me that a general American record store can carry nowadays. In terms of imports and world music (which I buy tons of) I had to go order online from the get-go so the closing of this store will really not affect me as they didn't fulfill my needs in that department.
Tower Records was great with both and was a shame they had to go. I was sure Virgin was a tourist trap and would continue but obviously they can't.
What will happen to the FYE on Randolph now??? Is there no hope?
Virgin, Tower, CompUSA -- whoop-de-shit, another chain store closes. These places mean nothing to Chicago. Shop local first.
Virgin, Tower, CompUSA -- whoop-de-shit, another chain store closes. These places mean nothing to Chicago. Shop local first.
all right, what local place has the nerd selection of compusa? and don't give me that fry's bullshit, i'm talking about in the city. all i can think of is microcenter. and since i can't get to microcenter very easily, i'll be turning to the internet now. wouldn't shopping in chicago, even though it's a chain, be a better choice?