Tower Records Last Stand

[Hardrock69]

I took these pix on December 20th...the final night of business for Tower Records at their West End location in Gnashville.....

Outside:



TV Crew doing remote broadcast:



Empty Aisles:



Elvis has left the building....:

[EbDawson]

Sad to see them go. I bought some neat stuff over the years at the Towers here in S.D. Bought DLR Sonrisa Salvaje there. Plus the store was only 2 blocks away from a strip joint. :D

[bueno bob]

Well, maybe if they'd have charged a little less than $18.00 for a new CD...

Before they went out of business here, I could get new CDs (on sale, of course) for about $15.99; comparatively, I could walk across the street to Everyday Music (a locally owned and EXTREMELY well stocked store) and buy the same CD, new, for $11.99.

If I bought a used copy of the same CD - $5.99 to $7.99, depending on condition.

Either that, or I could stay home and download the thing inside of 2 minutes for $2.75 or so, plus the cost of the CD-R to burn it.

You know, Tower Records used to be like a second home to me, but it just got to the point of sheer foolishness to buy music from them - unless I was interested in throwing money away for what amounted to no good reason. As other mediums started popping up (e.g. locally owned stores willing to compete with pricing, pawn shops, downloading, et al), Tower just basically kept doing the same business.

Towards the end, their selection of music was getting very threadbare anyway - same as other major retailers, mostly...if it wasn't "mainstream", odds are I wasn't going to find it. Mom and Pop music stores have a tendancy to cater more to my musical tastes, and frankly I always thought they needed the money more than Tower did, even with more readily available albums...

It's sad to see it go as an institution, but realistically, the absence of a Tower Records isn't going to hurt me or my access to music in the slightest.

[FORD]

Tower was THE Shit in the 80's, but in recent years they turned into just plain shit. The prices went higher and the selection went to Hell, until they finally became like all the other corporate chains focusing on the Titney/N Suck/P Diddly/Eminem prefabricated corporate pop star bubblegum horseshit. Sad to see them go, but they earned it.

[BruinJer]

The Tower down the street from where I'm at now (in Monterey Park) is still open... YOu know what I think is a fucking RIP... the CD's are still WELL over $12 even with the going out of business discount. I hope they rot in hell!!

[twonabomber]

didn't have any Towers here...but we had FYE, which used to be Camelot, which used to be a decent store. once Best Buy came in, i quit going there.

i kind of give the "FU" to Best Buy, too, because they think that if someone comes in for a $10 CD, chances are they're gonna walk out with something else. i would say 90% of the time i get my $10 CD and walk right the fuck out. theory busted.

[bueno bob]

Originally posted by twonabomber
didn't have any Towers here...but we had FYE, which used to be Camelot, which used to be a decent store. once Best Buy came in, i quit going there.

i kind of give the "FU" to Best Buy, too, because they think that if someone comes in for a $10 CD, chances are they're gonna walk out with something else. i would say 90% of the time i get my $10 CD and walk right the fuck out. theory busted.

I think that's the whole approach a lot of retailers are taking these days...figuring you'll walk out with more shit than what you came in for...

I do the same - CD and walk out...that's when I actually shop there, which admittedly isn't often...honestly, I really dislike Best Buy for a LOT of reasons...

[EbDawson]

Originally posted by FORD
Tower was THE Shit in the 80's, but in recent years they turned into just plain shit. The prices went higher and the selection went to Hell, until they finally became like all the other corporate chains focusing on the Titney/N Suck/P Diddly/Eminem prefabricated corporate pop star bubblegum horseshit. Sad to see them go, but they earned it.

The selection at the Towers here was great, larger than pretty much any other record store I've gone to. That's why I went there. You could find stuff you couldn't anywhere else. Prices weren't all that great, but they did have alot of stuff on sale regularly. That said it's probably been 2 years since I'd been in there.

[bueno bob]

I don't even recall hearing about the going out of business sale in my neck of the woods (although Seenbad might remember...?).

I think they just closed the doors here and called it a day...

[Last_Child]

Originally posted by bueno bob
Well, maybe if they'd have charged a little less than $18.00 for a new CD...

You'll hate Norway..

It's even more for a brand new CD..
Here you'll have to pay about $23

[bueno bob]

Originally posted by Last_Child
You'll hate Norway..

It's even more for a brand new CD..
Here you'll have to pay about $23

Well fuck that crap!

[Steve Savicki]

Tower and Virgin Megastore screwed up when they mixed their imports with their regular CDs. In other words, eliminating the specific import section.
Never dug them really.

Is Tower still online?

[bueno bob]

Originally posted by Steve Savicki
Tower and Virgin Megastore screwed up when they mixed their imports with their regular CDs. In other words, eliminating the specific import section.

I don't understand why you'd consider that a screw-up...

If you ask me, the bigger mistake was blending everything into the Pop Rock catagory, but I don't see how that would have damaged their business as much as excessive prices and a refusal to compete with local and online sources that were a FAR better investment for the average consumer.

Explain your reasoning?

[Kilkmaru]

Iv been to the west end tower lots of times.

[Steve Savicki]

Bob, with prices as high as they were, anyone could get domestic CDs anywhere. I'd just ignore their U.S. section of CDs and order them from CDNow before they sold to Borders.
With import CDs, one venue can't get every one where, so sometimes you had to just pick up an import CD where you got it. Due to Tower's high prices, I'd just go browse the import section for an import I couldn't get online or elsewhere. I remember buying a Shakatak compilation at Tower because it stood out in the separate import section whereas I never would've even thought of finding it mixed in with everything else (Shakatak have a piece that was the demo on my old 80's synth- bought the CD for the memories.)
When Tower fused everything together, I just decided it wasn't worth my time scouring Tower for CDs mostly domestic I could get cheaper online.

NOTHING is worth going into a music store for anymore. With limited store space and us getting older and new music taking over the store space, I just order online from venues serviced by warehouses. That's where I can get all the 80's reissues I'm looking for.