Music

There is a music store for sale in Los Angeles. It has old, sagging shelves stuffed with hundreds of thousands of recordings, from wax cylinders to 8-track tapes to LPs and CDs. The man who has owned the business since 1962 is Murray Gershenz.

"I wasn't earning enough money to support my family, so I decided to get some extra income by putting my record collection up for sale," Gershenz tells NPR's Scott Simon. "I opened the store, built some shelves with the help of a rabbi friend of mine and, little by little, the music took over."

How do you measure the value of an experience — one that promises the thrill of new discoveries; the chance to experience, at least vicariously, foreign cultures, new ideas, unexpected emotions — and, at least for a moment, escape? What's that worth?

Probably more than words can express — whatever experience those questions might conjure for you. For me, they're prompted by the loss of an experience — of going to a record store.

Melody Records, on Connecticut Avenue in Washington, D.C., closed on March 9,2012, after 35 years in business.

Whether it's embracing a secret love, or aiming for “multiple demographics,” a crossover project challenges any artist. Crossovers exist where different music genres intersect, or when an artist jumps the tracks for a while....

Of Monsters and Men is an Icelandic sextet specializing in catchy folk-pop. The group came together in 2009 when singer Nanna Bryndís Hilmarsdóttir began recruiting backups for her acoustic solo act. In 2010, Of Monsters and Men gained national fame when it won an annual Icelandic battle of the bands; since then, the buzz has only grown.