Weird tale here, one giant of industry going up against...an entire industry, and they win either way (Wal-Mart does not need to sell music to make money). Wal-Mart carries something like 1/12 the amount of titles that a Tower would, but what can you do. They come off looking good in the populist 'we're looking out for our customers' sense, and the industry looks awful. In reality, both have their negatives & positives. In this case I see the negs on both sides as far outweighing the positives, but it's an interesting staredown.

This article is the best article about the music biz I've seen in Rolling Stone in a long time. I think it's essential reading for anyone who buys CDs, even if you don't buy 'em at Wal-Mart...on the forum where I first saw this article, someone had a great page of links to illustrate their anti-Wal-Mart stance...which I put up on the General board at AA, where someone posted a link to this article. But over there the links aren't enabled, so I'll re-post them here when I have a chance to go back & find it. In the meantime: thoughts?