Anybody really miss Tower Records or Virgin Megastore?

Both,especially Virgin on Michigan Avenue,downtown Chicago. Biggest import CD section I have ever seen.even though very pricey. Vinyl section downstairs was fairly big. I remember buying a 7 inch vinyl UK single of The Damned Neat,Neat,Neat, a few months before they closed down in 07.

 

I really miss the Tower Records stores that we had in Toronto briefly.
The deep catalogue was great!

 

I miss J&R music world in a NYC. They just closed in the spring time. They had a great selection of CDs and vinyl, plus computers stereo gear. Truly missed.

 

Sure I miss Tower, but I miss even more the little hole in the wall record shops. I grew up in the east L. A. area and there were about four mom-and-pops (not even counting stores like Music Plus and The Wherehouse) where I got most of my music. The first albums I ever purchased were from the local supermarket.

 

I used to do ALL of them (HMV too), though J&R was my favorite in terms of prices and selection. Now, in New York, we have NOTHING anywhere near what we used to....

 

Nobody's trying to control your mind. I simply find this discussion misguided because Tower was more overpriced than even the small independents who needed to be to survive. They counted on the huge selection making you feel so euphoric that you'd happily hand over your mula with a twinkle in your eye. THAT'S a much larger variant of the "mind control" concept you ironically make reference to.

 

Wherehouse was great for used cds. Bought a lot of stuff there.

 

As big a selection, more knowledgeable staff AND they made the Towers and Virgins of the world look like shysters in the process.

 

I miss the Tower Records on Columbus Ave in San Francisco. I stopped there a lot on the way home from work in the early 1990's. They had a separate room for Jazz that was isolated enough from the rest of the store to enjoy the jazz playing in that room without hearing the metal or rap or whatever was playing in the main room. The selection across all genres was deep, lots of imports. The people who worked there were music fans.

 

The thing with J&R was that their staff was loyal, and many worked there for years and knew their stuff. Whereas the Tower and Virgin staff were more transient, often very young compared to the more "mature" J&R staff

 

I don't miss Tower in particular, I just miss having places like that to wander around in. I used to go to the Tower Books/Music store in downtown Bellevue, WA with my parents and just marvel at the place.

 

I agree! The layout of that store was great. It was actually very well designed (and it was huge).

 

I use to love going to Peaches every summer in Orlando when I went to visit my grandmother. I loved the import vinyl they had.

 

Progress is a tricky thing. I think it's great that so many people have good memories of Tower, but by the 90s, I preferred local chains like Newbury Comics in the Boston area and Olsson's around DC. The prices were cheaper and I liked the vibe in the smaller stores (the jazz selection at Olsson's, at least in Georgetown, was great). Music on the internet is like a dream to me. I can listen to virtually any music I want before purchasing it, read reviews while I'm shopping, comparison price shop, choose the media I want, check out radio shows from anyplace in the world...it's a big change, and for me, it's outrageous progress. I get it: it's not social, and the jobs are gone. Plus, I'm lucky: if I'm in Burlington or Natick and I have time to kill, I can still jump into a Newbury Comics to see what's new. But count me among the people who prefers the feelings I have while I'm listening to music -- some of which I would never have found back in those days -- to the feelings I have while shopping for music.

 

Tower Records in London had a superb blues section. In comparison the blues sections in HMV and Virgin usually consisted of one rack containing the same few discs. The first time I discovered Tower's section felt like blues heaven! So many discs you couldn't find elsewhere. Really missed it when it closed down.

 

I don't remember the exact floor layout but each floor was a different genre, they had Japanese bands on every floor on a Friday and I was floored by how young they looked and the styles they covered. There were not any deals there, not much vinyl, but they had just about everything you could want in musical variety. I did not buy anything but have bought about 60 lps at Disk Union and Recofan and I am still trying to figure out how to get them on the airplane! I have spent full days wandering around the record stores here or just wandering down the side streets in Shinjuku, something new around every corner. Lots of bootleg shops but wow 50 bucks for a cd or DVD of a show is crazy. On Saturdays the collectors come out in mass and they are like machines rifling through the racks and buying up all kinds of stuff I have never heard of but they know exactly what to look for and they are the fastest going through the bins that I have ever witnessed!

 

In the UK, it's basically HMV or nothing - if your town happens to have one. If you'd told me I'd ever visit towns where you couldn't physically buy a record/CD, I'd never have believed you

(There's also the likes of supermarkets who just sell the Top 20/biggest sellers - which is presumably what makes them Top 20/big sellers!)

Then again, it became a Catch 22. I didn't want to just order everything on Amazon, so I remember going to Zavvi (the last version of Virgin?) to buy three new releases. (Can't remember what, but I think "The Move at the Fillmore" was one of them). Not one was in stock, so of course it was back to Amazon. So I couldn't support my "real" record shop, as much as I wanted to.

 

I first shopped at the two Tower locations in New York, but not for everything, there were still plenty of other great options back in those days. When I moved to L.A. I would visit the two Valley locations in Sherman Oaks and Woodland Hills once in a while, but rarely the one on Sunset. While I enjoyed the vast selections as so many have stated, they were very expensive, charging full list price for 90% of the in store stock.

When the Van Nuys store moved to the re-built Sherman Oaks Galleria it was then that browsing at Tower became a regular activity following evening movie going at the cinema there. When they closed it was a very sad thing. Thankfully L.A. still has many options for physical store shopping. From where I live I can be at my local fave Freakbeat Records in 10 minutes, browse at Second Spin in 15, or go in the other direction and arrive at the enormous Ameoba Records Hollywood in about 15 minutes. Another addition just blocks from Ameoba is the Record Parlour on Selma, an excellent used vinyl and vintage gear shop. All of those choices make me very happy and also well aware that it's a fortunate situation I have that most others don't in this day and age.

I'll note that I'm writing this while back in New York for work. It makes me very sad when I walk around areas that used to offer so many great record stores but are now seas of banks, drug store chains, pricey boutiques and eateries. It was great though to recently find that the tiny, jam packed Rebel Rebel on Bleeker Street was still there after a friend had told me they'd closed. I was happy to drop $50 on some music I'd been looking for, and happier still to find the store full of customers.

 

I was relieved when I read a few years ago that Tower Shibuya in Tokyo survived the demise of the chain. Although I may never step foot in it ever again, the thought is oddly reassuring. Thanks for reminding me it's there...and still thriving it seems, with the high prices and all.

I spent a lot of time in record shops in Tokyo and Osaka, and just as much time taking the trains and wandering around small side streets in search of them, just to discover an amazing bookstore, toy shop, or restaurant instead.
With all the voracious music collectors you described, I realized that a lot of the great finds in the bins were probably snapped up quickly. Or so I convinced myself - being on vacation, I couldn't spend all my yen on music...nor time in a store when I also wanted to go see the scenic parks, incredible museums, and explore the city.

I can relate to your luggage dilemma...perhaps you'll have to wear several layers of clothes to make some room for the vinyl. Or ship the clothing in advance...nah, just drop them off at a charity shop (but don't look at the used vinyl there!). Good luck!

 

I grew up in an area where the record stores didn't carry a vast array of deep catalog titles to begin with so I don't miss what I never had. I remember having my local Sam The Record Man special order several CDs for me in the late 90s. They would take two to three months to arrive and would cost $25-27 CDN after taxes. Online shopping was a godsend.

 

I don't know, I only ever really look at the vinyl and some Blu Rays, I'll take a quick look next time I'm there.

 

I DO embrace the now.That's why the last few years,I buy all my vinyl online.Brick and mortars have been pretty much dead for me for years.

And I often pick up a couple of bottles of Moxie on my way home from the post office.



$1.69 per 12 ounce bottle.

I only wish the used vinyl I was after wasn't so expensive.It's been quite a while since I spent less than $75 on an old record.

 

OK, thanks...yes, just curious how many Japanese import CDs (and over in the soundtrack section as well) you might see within the CD racks...

 

I worked for Tower for years in the late 80s/early 90s. I miss shopping there which I did long before I started working there. Do I miss working there? Not so much. The pay was crappy. Although the number of free promo LP/CDs I acquired and free concert tickets/backstage passes was astounding. Made some great friends and memories during that time as well. And I didn't have to cut my hair to work there. But you can't go back again and, for the most part, shouldn't.

Those were some fun times though.

 

I loved Tower .Would go in read some Magazines then do my cd shopping Tower Sherman Oaks Ca had an outlet across the street bought a lot of great music videos that have never been on dvd and probably never will