He works as a sign language interpreter by day and owns a music store at night.

On some days, it’s as if Al Raci lives two separate lives.

“During the day, I’m with people who can’t hear, and at night I go to the music store where people need to be particular about what they hear,” said Raci, who owns Mojo Music in Willowbrook.

Like Mojo Music, many independent music stores are struggling to survive after sales plummeted in favor of purchasing music with a few clicks of a button online.

CD sales have been declining since 2001, which peaked at $701 million, according to Nielsen SoundScan’s State of the Industry Report. Sales slid to $553 million in 2006. To date this year, digital track purchases are up 52 percent while CD sales are down another 17 percent.

Mojo Music, located at 38 63rd St., is one of the last of a dying breed of independent music stores still left in the western suburbs. It is an old school record store — selling both records and CDs — from the newly-released Wilco CDs to Beatles records.

But after three years in business, Mojo Music is scheduled to close at the end of June.
Raci, a Downers Grove resident, said he saw the biggest drop in new releases, which means most of his younger customers are heading to their computers opposed to his store’s front door.

“Kids don’t care about the interesting things about music,” he said. “They just want to get that one song in their head.”

When growing up, Raci said teens believed it was important to listen to an entire album, instead of just one song, to understand its art.

The purchase of single digital tracks has boomed over the last three years, going from 140 million in 2004 to 550 million in 2006. While online album sale numbers are less impressive, the growth still has been outstanding, increasing more than 100 percent since 2005 to hit the 32 million mark last year.

Raci’s daughter, Julianne Raci, 17, shares her father’s opinion. Although all her friends download music because it is “convenient,” Julianne said she is the exception.

“The music quality is not as good when it goes from a CD to a computer to an iPod,” she explained.

Julianne said she is upset her father’s store is closing — it has always been his dream — and fears the music industry is on a fast track of “going down the drain.”

The trend seems likely to continue.

Jim Donio, president of the National Association of Recording Merchandisers, said a May meeting of executives from record companies around the world in Chicago left him feeling optimistic that the industry can adapt.

“The most successful retailers are going to be those that really get to know who their consumer is,” he said. “Selection is a really, really important thing.”

Already retailers are looking at ways to cater their stores to the desires of the digital savvy. Some shops are installing kiosks allowing people to burn their own CDs or even download music directly into a MP3 player. Other recording labels have discussed integrating in-store purchases with online shopping.

Big chains may be more able to offer the selection the Internet generation craves, but Donio said small stores can best capitalize on the social aspects of shopping that cannot easily be replaced, even by networks like MySpace.

“Independent stores are critical to the marketplace, but that’s where people have the chance to see artists perform, to meet artists at the grass-roots level before it becomes the next big thing,” he said.

Ryan Fergus, a drummer from Lucky Boys Confusion — a rock band from Downers Grove and Naperville — said their online exposure has actually helped them gain fans.
When they sell music online, the profit goes to their record label or whoever owns the music. When they streamline their music on MySpace or another Web site, it helps draw fans to their shows.

For a local band that has produced six albums in 10 years, the group sees little profit from record sales anyway, as their largest source of revenue comes from tickets and merchandise sales, according to Fergus.

“U2 might get nervous,” he said. “But until we go platinum, we are not going to see a profit.”