Tower Records
November 5, 2006
Tower Records is going out of business. The announcement came out a couple of weeks ago, but it’s not reflected on their website for some reason. Everything is on sale at the stores and they should all be closed by the end of the year.
Fred and I popped into the one in town after going to the local mega mart. It looks like the CD’s and DVD’s are 30% off, I forget how much books were discounted, but magazines were 60% off! Woot! I got a copy of UTNE Reader for $2! I was hoping that they would have a copy of Craft magazine, but if they did have them, they were all gone already. Craft looks like an awesome magazine, but it’s $14.99 – that’s waaay too expensive in my book.
The closing of Tower Records is a bit sad actually. When I was growing up in Hawaii, it was basically the only place in town to get records. I remember walking the aisles as a teen looking over the latest 45′s and finding the perfect Cure album for my sister for Christmas. I bought my first CD there – and we didn’t even have a CD player at the time! Well, we got one the same day that I got the CD. 
I’d go there occasionally, but then more music stores opened up in Honolulu and I’d go to the used music places rather than Towers. I discovered discount mail ordered CD’s after I started college and those prices, with shipping, were still cheaper than going to the store. Then of course after the Millennium, I started getting into mp3′s after I converted my CD’s.
A lot of music companies like to blame mp3′s on the downfall of music sales, but my opinion is that music sales are falling simply because most of the stuff that is coming out is just pure and utter crap. I mean, there’s no excitement anymore like when Nirvana came out or when Madonna became a pop star. I mean, nowadays the popular “rock” musicians all sound like crap and they all sound pretty interchangeable. Like if someone switched the lead singers between band a and b, would anyone really be able to tell the difference? (This does not include Sammy Hagar vs David Lee Roth though!)
I do believe that most of the stores are going to be closed by mid December, but I think it mostly depends on how each stores supplies hold out.
Filed under: Consumer Whore
