A music CD is the heart of the music industry. But music has always been sold in ever-changing formats and that will eventually happen to the music CD according to an article posted Sunday at the Belleville News Democrat.

In the last century or so, we've seen music stored and later sold on tubes, vinyl discs, eight-track tapes, cassettes, and plastic CDs. And since 90 percent of the music sold last year was on CDs, they aren't going away soon.

The biggest factor is the buying habits of music listeners. Some stores are able to captivate customers who just want to touch, and look, and listen for awhile.

"There will always be stores," says Jim Donio, president of the National Association of Recording Merchandisers. "We'll say that unequivocally. To start out, people love to shop in stores. It's part of our culture, and I don't expect that will ever change. There will always be a brick and mortar component.... Of course, that means the stores will adapt, and the stores will change."

David Sax, a licensee of CD Warehouse in West Palm Beach, agrees: "whether it be clothes, or in our case, CDs. [But] successful CD stores need to retool."

There are already some keys on where to look for change. The article explained, "Perhaps, though, the most revealing statements about the future come from young people, who will actually be buying the bulk of digital music in the future. "We want it here, we want it now," says Sax's daughter, Sarah, 14. "[It's] like television's On Demand movies. You don't have to go get the movie, you can order it. You go to like Channel 900, and they have a list of them, and you can pick them right there."

Eventually, the plastic music CD will fade away in the on-demand future just as every other physical format has. It's inevitable.