Nobody is safe.

That sounds a lot scarier than it is, since I'm referring to the state of retail music sales. I visited Twist and Shout, the city's largest independent music retailer, last night. They used to be about 100 yards from my house, but moved a few miles away about a year-and-a-half ago (saving me a considerable sum in impulse purchases). This was my third visit in recent months and each time, I was specifically interested in getting a particular CD. All three times, they haven't had the disk in stock, driving me to the internet for my purchase.

On last night's visit, the woman at the counter who verified that the disk wasn't in stock also confessed that the store has been in a buying freeze until recently. If this is the best store in town, with the deepest back-catalogue of older releases, how are the other places doing? Even worse? Is it all internet sales for the obscure stuff, Wal-Mart for the big releases and none of them doing as well as file-sharing?

CDs listened to today:

• Christopher Rouse: Concerto For Trombone (Christian Lindberg, soloist)
• UB40: Labour Of Love II
• Bill Watrous: The Tiger Of San Pedro
• Dmitri Shostakovich: The String Quartets, disk 2
• Various Artists: Sounds Of The Seventies, 1970