• An important music biz dinosaur heads for extinction…so long Tower, we hardly knew ya!
• CNET/Reuters article on the recent uptick in digital download sales
• Digital Music News on why digital downloads may not be all that
• Hypebot points out an often-overlooked reason teens aren’t quickly jumping into legal digital downloads: no credit cards
• And some big media players are opening up a digital storefronts of their own:

1. iTunes/Starbucks partnership
2. BestBuy, Rhapsody, and SanDisk get together for a BestBuy Digital Music Store
3. Comcast gets into the game as well

It’s nice to see some other options out there for legally downloading music, but not only does it seem like these are all a little too late, it also makes me wonder if any of these stores will offer anything new. How about tracks in open MP3 format and no DRM? How about some competitive pricing (sorry, $0.99 per track isn’t always a good deal)? Plus, if people already own an iPod (iPods count for something like 79% of the US market), they’re likely going to already use any of the following options for downloading music to put on their iPods:

• download from the iTunes Music Store (if you don’t care about the DRM restirctions)
• Use a site like eMusic (that sells tracks without restrictions)
• buy CDs to rip as “un-protected” MP3s
• or find one of those newer “Darknet” P2P sites that continue to thrive in the digital underground (and are increasingly harder for the RIAA to track down for litigation).

Sure, some consumers will head to these new storefronts, but they just don’t seem all that compelling in terms new offerings. LMM will continue to watch this space develop, but for a snarky take on the current state of the record biz, try a little taste of Bob Lefsetz, who’s rants and raves are usually right on target and always entertaining.