Tower Records goin' under? (1 Viewer)

[Andrew 'Ange Hamm' Hamm]

Word! I bought a TON of laserdiscs from the basement room of the Upper West Side Tower when I lived in NYC.

 

[Dave Mack]

My old stomping grounds! My mom is still a block away where I grew up!

 

[Vegas 1]

I would spend hours thumbing thru laserdisc here in Vegas, at one time they had two stores opened here. I would visit both for those hard to find titles.Alas those days are gone. With the touch of a computer one can find most anything nowdays. At least there are still used outlets for that hands one approach.

 

[Mark_TS]

well, I love spending an afternoon browsing the Mercer store, every so often.
Just to see and or listen to what is new.
Sadly, I mostly I buy else where at significant savings.
But I grew up on TOWER, dammit!
From Import LPs, to CDs and a fair International section.
For a while the Mercer store was Goth-girl central.
But now is populated by old timers-from 25-45...
If SILVER PLATTERS went under-whose prices are higher than Tower (they closed a store in Tacoma, also)maybe Tower could prosper.
It would be very sad to see the close.
Russ Solomon is probably turnng over in his RV...
maybe Tower would survive...

 

[Steve Y]

I have fond memories of browsing Tower stores... I still frequent the Campbell and Mountain View stores from time to time. Apart from Rasputins and Amoeba, the size and variety of their selection is pretty unrivaled in terms of B&M establishments. But unless I find items I really want on sale, I find _no reason_ to spent $18 for a CD I can buy for $12~$13 online (at the very very most).

I'll still miss Tower. Their classical selection in my area is almost unrivaled for B&Ms. Browsing just isn't the same online, you know...?

 

[John Garcia]

Yep. It is unfortunate that they are basically pricing themselves out of their own market. It sucks that the big box stores can create that much pressure on them. I frequent the Blossom Hill and San Antonio stores quite often, but just like Steve Y, I almost always buy sale items only unless it is something I can't find anywhere else. I still have a gift card from there...I better get over there and use it soon...

 

[Jeffrey R]

This is my store. I live a block away, and I'm in there almost every day either before or after work.

Lots of times to see the new releases that I have on the way from online (part of their problem I guess). Lots of times to just browse. And frankly lots of times to actually buy.

It is so convenient having a store like Tower nearby. Sometimes they have OOP (or near OOP) boxsets in stock that are hard to find elsewhere. Even though they dispersed the SACD's and DVD-A's, I still find lots of rare titles there, like OOP Audio Fidelity SACD's and other SACD's and DVD-A's.

And their jazz section downstairs is great--a really big selection. There prices are sometimes out-of-whack, but I hope this store and other Tower's stick around.

 

[Andrew Bunk]

The two Chicago suburbs stores are doing a buy 4 get 1 free mix and match with CD's and DVD's.

 

[Yee-Ming]

FWIW the solitary remaining Singapore outlet shut its doors last week. Press reports say they claim they're packing up their stock and looking for new premises, but I take that with a big pinch of salt -- apparently many distributors haven't been paid in a while, they haven't received any new stock for months (and therefore no new releases!), and at least one wants to sue them.

 

[Roger Mathus]

I lived in Tokyo from 1990-2003 and I recall shopping at the Tower store that was 8 or 9 floors of CDs and video with top floor for books. Store was at one time billed as worlds largest music store. One interesting thing was that they displayed condoms and perfumes for sale at the check out counters. In Tokyo, they also played x-rated RAP songs over the in store music system.

One whole floor was classical.

 

[John Garcia]

Other than all those floors, you pretty much described all the Towers I've been to. The music that is on, is whatever the staff on hand chooses to play, so you never know what you'll get.

My local stores had the buy 4 get the 5th free (any combo of CD and DVD, lowest item free), which I took advantage of. The sign said the deal was good in all stores.

 

[DanFe]

Roger is describing the Shibuya store which still has all those floors.

 

[JohnS]

the one over here in Vegas, that was a WOW! store(Good Guys + Tower)
which Good Guys left about 6 months ago, Tower is now doing the buy 4 get 5th free. AND as of yesterday are getting all of their toy overstock out on the floor, to sell it off at 75 % off. Right when you walk in there's hundreds of boxes covering the floor of nothing but Toys.

 

[Jesse Skeen]

Well, it's over now. The company was sold today to a company that is buying it for the sole purpose of blowing it out and closing it. I hope this will serve as a wake-up call to the record labels that they cannot continue to overprice their music. Something VERY big is going to have to happen soon to revitalize the whole industry.

 

[Ray Chuang]

This is a very sad day for Sacramento, CA, since Tower Records started in Sacramento and has major retail presences on the corner of Watt and El Camino Avenues in northeastern Sacramento and the corner of Broadway and 16th Street. It's going to be so spooky to walk by the empty storefronts by the end of November 2006. :frowning:

But then, this is not surprising to me. Tower couldn't compete against retailers with huge discount bulk buying power like Barnes & Noble, Borders Books, Best Buy, Wal-Mart and even Costco, not to mention online retailers like Amazon.com Buy.com and so on.

 

[JeremyErwin]

Great, Just Great. FYE sucks. ($20 bucks for a CD, a classical section that consists of a few "Best Loved Favorites-- Greater Hoople Off Season orchestra", and, at least in my area, an inane policy of separating the music from the video into separate stores.)

 

[Steve Y]

The end of an era! I'll miss browsing their shelves late at night - they were one of the few record / movie stores left that stayed open until 11 or midnight. Great way to pass the time when you're feeling restless. There was a big story in the paper about this today, and they mentioned the liquidation might begin as early as today! Liquidation sales are dangerous... for one's pocketbook I mean...

 

[Jordan_E]

I fondly remember walking through the Seattle Tower Records, just off the Center, and wishing I had WAY more money to buy all the laser discs they had!

 

[Phil A]

I just visited my local store which is closing. Not that great a deal. 10% of music and movies, 20% off books and 30% off magazines. At $18.99 for many CDs, even the 10% off is not a good deal. I had a MoFi SACD in my hand. You can get it on the web for $25 list from many places, $30.99 less 10% does not do anything for me. Sometimes they used to have a 25% off sale and I bought a MoFi or two at that price. They did have a small table of clearance items but I took a quick look and there was nothing of interest to me. I enjoyed the selection they carried. I bought stuff a couple of times at regular price as they had the few hi-rez items I wanted and I'd have to go to multiple places on the web and a figured for a few more bucks and being right there was worth the convenience.

 

[Rhett_Y]

Well you know what this means... Christmas is going to be good this year.. by the time the holidays roll around....there should be some good sales going on!!!!

Sad to see them go, but man they were way to expensive..but they did have a ton of titles you couldn't find anywhere else....

R~