Nonesuch President Bob Hurwitz, who recently celebrated his 25th anniversary as head of the label, is featured on the latest episode of The Monocle Weekly, the weekly audio series on global affairs, business, culture, design, and consumer culture hosted by Monocle magazine Editor-in-Chief Tyler Brûlé.

On this week's special hour-long episode from New York, the discussion includes the art of the political memoir, coinciding with the publication of Sarah Palin's new book; the future of print media; and, in the culture section with Bob, a fitting topic for this anniversary year: the past, present, and future of the music business.

"It's only now that there are no more record stores in this country, that is to say there are no stores for which selling records is their primary business," says Bob, "that we have begun to truly understood how important record stores were."

For Bob, what has been lost with record stores is not just a generic retail space but a unique meeting place that the online environment can't replace. "A record store was a kind of community center for people, for example, who loved classical music or world music or Broadway shows or jazz," he says, "a place they could go every week and there'd be people there who they recognize and people who they knew."

There's much more at monocle.com, where you can listen to the complete episode and hear the culture segment with Bob at about 18:30 minutes in.