Tower Records has relaunched

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by melodic chaos, Apr 30, 2020.

  1. Dillydipper

    Dillydipper Space-Age luddite

    Location:
    Central PA
    Oh great - a brand name we used to know as ubiquitous in every large metropolis for carrying a large variety of entertainment, now re-established to represent elitist specialty products. Huzzah.
     
    Hep Alien likes this.
  2. keefer1970

    keefer1970 Metal, Movies, Beer!

    Location:
    New Jersey
    If you haven't seen it yet, Colin Hanks' Tower Records documentary "All Things Must Pass" is available on YouTube (legally, free with ads).
     
  3. rfkavanagh

    rfkavanagh Unashamedly Pop!

    Location:
    New York
    The site's not of much interest to me, but I used to enjoy my Tower shopping trips - the Dublin stores growing up (and I still visit the Wicklow St and Eason's stores every time I go home), and then primarily the Sunset and Pasadena ones in LA. Terrible pricing in general, but often random opportunities to pick up a few bargains.
     
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  4. misteranderson

    misteranderson Forum Resident

    Location:
    englewood, nj
    The one on Rt. 17 South, I assume.

    A couple friends of mine worked there for a while. Lots of great stories...
     
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  5. JakeKlas

    JakeKlas Impatiently waiting for an 8-track revival

    Location:
    United States
    I bought that a year or so ago because I have fond memories of Tower. Great doc if that store was a big part of one’s musical journey.

    And yeah... at the end where the guy walks into that store... I already knew about it, but seeing it made me want to go that much more.

    Have always told my wife that if I do go, I’m going with two suitcases... one for my clothes, and an empty one to fill up at that store. I’m sure customs would be a bugger, but just the joy of filling up a cart with music would be worth it.
     
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  6. Sebastian saglimbenI

    Sebastian saglimbenI Forum Resident

    Location:
    New york
    I was one of the last customers in their carle place new York store and after getting in at 9 a.m. they locked me in at 11....letting me search for 75-90% off discounts.i still have thec3 foot long ribbon receipt totalling $90+......even at that point they had amazing stuff!
     
    pudgym, dlemaudit, 2141 and 3 others like this.
  7. head_unit

    head_unit Senior Member

    Location:
    Los Angeles CA USA
    Man, I don't. There was some good stuff in Torrance but I dunno the selection never amazed me. Maybe it was just that location. I absolutely hated how during the time period you had to pay cash to Ticketmaster they would never let you pick seats. Maybe the employees just didn't know how. The store I liked and spent way too much money at was Rolling Stone Records outside Chicago. Yikes, I had to just stop going so frequently. And some shop whose name I don't remember on the near outskirts of London (not the Virgin megastore, that was cool but not interesting if that makes any sense)
     
  8. Northwindblewsouth

    Northwindblewsouth Throws Right, Bats Left

    Location:
    LA
    Used to go to the original Tower Records in Sacramento when I visited one of my sisters who lived a couple of blocks away. Wasn’t really that impressed by Tower Records until I started visiting the two stores on Sunset Blvd. The larger of the two stores on the north side of the street offered incredibly deep collections of rock, jazz, blues, folk, and soundtrack LPs (the genres I was most interested in then) . It was easy to blow my discretionary spending budget for a couple of months in the first 15 minutes. Tower’s ‘all classical’ annex right across the street forever greatly expanded my musical interests . I fondly remember when they were blowing out the Classic Records RCA Living Stereo reissues for about 6 bucks apiece and I snagged every title.

    Those were the days!
     
    lightbulb likes this.
  9. bug2362

    bug2362 Forum Resident

    Location:
    West Seattle, WA
    Lot’s of great memories shopping in the lower Queen Anne shop in Seattle...
    Would go down on Christmas Day with my gift dollars as they were open
    365 days
     
    rxcory, Peachy, davers and 2 others like this.
  10. nlgbbbblth

    nlgbbbblth Senior Member

    Location:
    Ireland
    There since 1993. Overpriced since inception and a constant rotation of hipster, flaky staff. I avoid it as much as possible.
     
  11. AndyP19

    AndyP19 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Hythe, Kent, UK
    Since HMV closed on Grafton St. They are the only shop in town. But you’re comments have been noted.
     
  12. Man at C&A

    Man at C&A Senior Member

    Location:
    England
    Sounds similar to HMV here.
     
    Sebastian saglimbenI likes this.
  13. AndyP19

    AndyP19 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Hythe, Kent, UK
    I’ve been there - but it was a few years ago - wonderful store.
     
    pudgym and JakeKlas like this.
  14. cjefferys

    cjefferys Forum Resident

    Yeah, I stop by the Shibuya Tower Records every time I'm in Japan, love that store and I'm glad it's still there (so far).
     
    pudgym and Floyd Crazy like this.
  15. uzn007

    uzn007 Watcher of the Skis

    Location:
    Raleigh, N.C.
    Show me on the doll where the record store hurt you.
     
    pudgym, Martijn, Ben Adams and 8 others like this.
  16. kwadguy

    kwadguy Senior Member

    Location:
    Cambridge, MA
    This is less that zero news.

    The Tower Records website was sold at auction during bankruptcy, and was purchased by Caimen. They planned to relaunch, and also planned to open some B&M stores, but none of it came to pass.

    I had some discussions with the guy who was in charge of trying to relaunch, offering some suggestions about what might and might not work. He was happy until I said something that didn't agree with his ideas and that was that.

    Anyway, that was about 10 years ago.

    Today, someone, probably without any connection to the original Tower, has decided to use the domain name to sell vinyl. There's really nothing at all interesting about that.
     
  17. JakeKlas

    JakeKlas Impatiently waiting for an 8-track revival

    Location:
    United States
    Same. My cousins and I would take our Christmas money and head to Tower that day. Always a fun family time to see what everyone would get.

    I love the immediacy and ease of buying music online these days, but I do miss those trips to a well-stocked Tower Records with the gang.
     
  18. bug2362

    bug2362 Forum Resident

    Location:
    West Seattle, WA
    Oh yeah, and then there was the adjacent store, Tower Posters- my sister and I in all our teenage maturity referred to it as Tower Bongs!
     
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  19. This.
     
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  20. BEAThoven

    BEAThoven Forum Resident

    Location:
    New Jersey
    I was just there in January -- it definitely gave the ol' feeling of shopping for CDs in say 1997.

    That said, it can be quite overwhelming. I found that I could not just browse -- it was taking about 45 minutes just to get down one aisle. I had to start narrowing it down to particular bands and genres just to get through.
     
  21. LoveYourLife

    LoveYourLife Forum Resident

    Location:
    London, UK
    I was there last year.
    The store is brilliant but they have competition. HMV (yes they're still going in Japan too) have opened smaller cooler 'vinyl only' stores which are doing ok and are way busier. I visited the Shibuya Tower 3 times on that visit, grabbed tons of CDs and some vinyl but I must admit while it wasn't dead, it was in no way busy. At the volume of customers I saw, just cannot can't be in profit. I just hope I get to visit it one more time before it goes -- if it goes. Corona may be the nail in the coffin sadly as Japan's economy is badly hit and the cancellation of the Olympics will put a major economic dampener on Tokyo in general and that store must need mass footfall just to break even.
     
    Last edited: Apr 30, 2020
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  22. CraigC

    CraigC Live It Up

    Location:
    LI, NY
    Nice! That was my store too. Maybe they’ll eventually be a good deals at Tower Records thread.
     
    Sebastian saglimbenI likes this.
  23. Sebastian saglimbenI

    Sebastian saglimbenI Forum Resident

    Location:
    New york
    Yes I loved the carle place store.....great selection of import c.d.'s.....oldies....and in the back country,folk,blues,jazz......much missed!!
     
    CraigC likes this.
  24. willie john

    willie john Forum Resident

    It is my favourite shop. It may be overpriced but the range of product available is better than anywhere else in Dublin.
     
    AndyP19 likes this.
  25. Sebastian saglimbenI

    Sebastian saglimbenI Forum Resident

    Location:
    New york
    There used to be an H.M.V. here in Manhasset New york in a mall named the americana...a.k.a. the "MIRACLE MILE"......the H.M.V. lasted about 2 years and it actually stocked hard to find imports that discounted up to 50-75% off if they didn't sell after a certain amount of time.i found 2 of the cherry red MICRO-DISNEY c.d.'s there and a cool opaque black jewel cased LLOYD COLE/COMMOTIONS -"GREATEST HITS" C.D. There.
     
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