Musicland has announced that it's set to close 150 poorly performing Sam Goody and Suncoast stores, which represents about 13% of the chain's 1,119 outlets.  This is not the first wave of closings for the Musicland chain.  Last January, when Best Buy owned Musicland, it closed 110 stores before unloading the chain to its current owners Sun Capital Partners (see 'Musicland Sold') in June.  As a result of the new round of closures Musicland will shed about 900 employees.  The stores will remain open through the current holiday season.

Not disclosed was how many of the closed outlets would be Sam Goody record stores versus Suncoast video stores.  The Suncoast chain, which focused on anime before any of the other national chains, is a major player in sales of anime, and manga as well (see 'Suncoast Adds Manga Spinners').  Musicland plans to add 50 new stores in better locations in 2004 -- it should be interesting to see how many of the new outlets are Suncoast video stores as opposed to the Sam Goody shops, which specialize in recorded music.