It is bitterly disappointing to this Dupont Circle resident to learn that my local record shop, Melody, is closing its doors. I know we’ve largely moved into a digital world musically, but I felt there was still a place for a quality brick-and-mortar music shop. However, dollars talk and when people don’t buy cds or records or videos — or they buy them at a loss on Amazon — we lose local institutions.

Yes, I understand there is an argument to be made for switching away from a resource-intensive physical product. And, yes, I know that everyone’s budget is tight and that in order to make dollars stretch you have to look for deals. However, Melody employed local music lovers, alerted you to upcoming concerts, offered a default location for those who wanted to “talk shop,” and allowed you to browse an extensive and well-rounded collection of current releases. There are still several used music shops around, and I can recommend a few of them quite highly. But Melody was the only local shop in town to get new releases (other than the couple dozen discs stocked at Politics and Prose), and their week-of-release prices were reasonably competitive with online mega-complexes.

This is a blow to music lovers and to the Dupont community and to me. Watch for their space soon to be filled by some national conglomerate. I’m sure what Dupont really needs is a Quiznos or another mobile phone store or a fifth Starbucks.