SINGAPORE - Local CD/music retailer Gramophone has announced that it will close their two remaining stores in Singapore. They sent a letter to their suppliers, stating that “given present market conditions”, their inventory “will not fetch enough” to pay “100% of the sums due to suppliers and other creditors”.

This means that HMV, which also faced the same situation before being bought earlier this year, is probably the last major music retailer here selling physical CDs, operating just two stores.

Sure, you can say that the closing down is inevitable, since many people now buy their music online and most people use CDs as decorative objects around the house, frisbees for their dogs to catch, or in my case, I stick two of them side-by-side and make goo-goo goggles.

But I don’t know. I can’t help feeling a twinge of sadness to hear that Gramophone has gone the way of Supreme, Valentine, Chua Joo Huat, Sembawang Music, Beethoven Record House, Tower Records, Sing Music, et al. (Those, for those too young to know, were some of Singapore’s so-cool-they’re-hot CD shops of yore. Yes, you actually had to go to an actual music store to buy music.)

I remember talking to Chris, Gramophone’s head honcho, a few years ago at MTV’s World Stage in Sunway. As we watched Kasabian do their thing, he lamented about the state of affairs in the music industry and he wondered how long his enterprise would last.

Now we know the answer.

I used to love going to Gramophone. To me, they were like the local version of HMV. But better, because they were more affordable. I remember frequenting the store along North Bridge Road, if I had time after work, browsing through shelves and often finding gems, such as The Beatles DVD set (featuring Help!, Magical Mystery Tour, The Beatles’ First US Visit documentary and You Can’t Do That, a documentary on the making of A Hard Day’s Night, hosted by Phil Collins) or The Who’s back catalogue. (This was before they became fashionable again.)

In a way, Gramophone also reminded me of Sembawang Music Centre, back when SMC was just a single outlet in the decidedly unfashionable Sembawang Shopping Centre then - back in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Its owner, Dave Boo, was the man to see for all your music. He was the man who slipped me the Velvet Underground reunion concert, Live MCMXCIII, way before any of the other so-called more popular shops did. He would recommend some of the coolest music, from Teenage Fanclub to Johnny Cash to Prince (then not called Prince), and a then-relatively unknown American rock trio called Nirvana who had just released their first album, Bleach.

Likewise, Chris was the guy to see if you wanted anything any recommendation for music that wasn’t quite on the Top 40. It was through Gramophone that I discovered the advent of K-pop via this cute quintet called Wonder Girls. And the staff do know their stuff. I would frequent the Raffles Place store during lunch hour just to talk music with them.

That’s where I bought The Shadows 20 Golden Greats and Another 20 Golden Greats for my dad, decided that I liked them too much to give away, and kept them. Gramophone also had a buy-back policy, where I could cash-in my old CDs for a buck or two. That would be my lunch money for the week.

But Gramophone will soon cease to be. It has rung down the curtain and joined the choir invisible. All that will be left of their legacy is that bright orange price tag affixed with such strong adhesive, I could never tear them off my CD covers without defacing them, and a old worn receipt acknowledging that I have received payment for trading in 25 CDs and 3 DVDs.

That’s the way the wheel turns, that’s the way the bee bumbles, that’s the way the cookie crumbles. Bedbugs and ballyhoo. It’s all over now, Baby Blue.