#STRUGGLE SESSION BRICK BY BRICK MOVIE#

Customers choose the entertainment on the panels whether it's music videos, movie previews or even personal photos by text messaging commands from their cell phone. Black leather couches are bathed in sound and light under images projected on a wall of glass panels. HORWICH: Musicland hopes the path to relevance and revenue is this trendy looking lounge built in the center of the Sam Goody at the Mall of America. ROB WILLEY (Senior Vice President, Musicland): Well, with everybody carrying music now, everybody from Starbucks to Wal-Mart to Best Buy to Circuit City, there's not longer a special reason to take a trip to a music store.

Musicland's senior VP, Rob Willey, says the company has erased most of the red ink by improving advertising, floor layouts and other retailing basics, but that alone won't make Sam Goody a long-term player. Sam Goody's parent company, Musicland, is now privately held. The new owners have since closed more than a third of Sam Goody locations. Electronics retailer Best Buy unloaded the chain in 2003 after sales fell more than 20 percent in one year. Sales of compact discs in the US have been falling since 1999 and Sam Goody's has felt it. From Minnesota Public Radio, Jeff Horwich reports. That Minneapolis-based retailer now hopes to reverse its fortunes by encouraging people to just hang out.

INSKEEP: Online shopping, music downloading and CD sales by big stores have all been harmful to traditional music chains like Sam Goody's.

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Struggle session brick by brick