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In Reply to: Tower Records Store Closing Sale in Chicago posted by Deacon Blues on October 16, 2006 at 12:12:10:
Tower has always been a tool of the record industry...Now, there's no reason to cry as they are unable to save their monopoly. There are plenty of indie record stores in Chicago, plenty of deals on line, and more importantly, - it's time to embrace new technology.
We should be rejoicing, that the good old free market, unhindered capitalism, - has won the day and is taking down these dinosaurs. They've stolen from consumers, and their artists for many years, - now they're getting their just desserts. All the while, those who have been bamboozled into believing that it's important to support price gouging, price collusion, pretense of copyright infringement, cheating artists of their royalties, and unfair tax shelters are going to cry about spending $20 for the latest CD version of Milly Vanilly...
Time to support labels like Six Degrees....
With your feet on the air and your head on the ground, try this trick and spin it, your head'll collapse if there's nothing in it then you'll ask yourself, where is my mind?
Follow Ups:
Yeah, it's easy to dismiss Tower as just some other corporate entity (I agree with you that they got greedy). And it's easy for people that are fortunate enough to have good indie record stores in their community to say good riddance. But, Tower wasn't always a corporate puppet (it became one after Russ Solomon let go of the reins). Some of the communities Tower is leaving are left with nothing but Wal Mart, Best Buy and Target (let's see how much deep catalogue, Jazz and Classical you find in these cultural wastelands). Sure, there is the internet where great deals can be found and everything is available. But for me, online shopping pales in comparison with spending a couple of hours browsing in a well stocked store with knowledgeable staff. It's as much a social experience as a shopping trip. Fortunately, I have an Amoeba Music a couple of miles from me (which is actually as expensive as Tower for new CD's) to fulfill my music shopping needs, but I do think Tower will be sorely missed in less metropolitan areas.
You in LA?I have never seen a new CD priced at retail at either the SF Amoeba or the Berkeley Amoeba...
Cheers,
With your feet on the air and your head on the ground, try this trick and spin it, your head'll collapse if there's nothing in it then you'll ask yourself, where is my mind?
Yes, I'm in Los Angeles. I was actually referring to the sale pricing of new releases, not the price of new deep catalogue. Sorry, I should have stated that.
new releases at the Amoebas that I go to are always $14.99Cheers,
With your feet on the air and your head on the ground, try this trick and spin it, your head'll collapse if there's nothing in it then you'll ask yourself, where is my mind?
Exactly. New releases at Tower were priced at $12.99, $11.99
my nostalgia is linked to the fact that for me the Wabash Rose Records was an unusual place to go, run by an engaging staff who knew their stock, and full of stuff that I could never see/hear in my local neighborhood. Going there was a mini-road-trip and the frat house shabby ambience was oddly comfortable; Rose was much more enjoyable to hang around in than Borders. Sitting in front of my laptop at home by myself, surfing the online music vendors, just isn't as much fun as a trip to the loop, even though the range of available music is probably much greater on the net that it was at the old Rose, and maybe cheaper, too. And, I predict that the sharks who have run the music business for the past few decades will eventually gain control of (embrace) the new distribution technologies and restore their sharp practices. Then again, maybe I'm just a crank and the younger generations will have the same broadening experience of music that I did, but in an entirely different way that I cannot yet imagine.
You have a point about Tower Records being ultimately just another player in league with the forces of music industry darkness, but I always enjoyed the dowdiness of the S. Wabash St. store. It almost seemed like they didn't realize they had become part of a nationwide chain. And if it weren't for the corporate dinosaurs and the remainder of their physical distribution network, we wouldn't even have DSD/SACD. At least the dinos could afford to invent it, develop it, and throw it out there for us.And yes, there are still record stores in Chicago--Jazz Record Mart on East Illinois St. comes to mind. But as supporters of SACD/high resolution, I wonder just what new technology we should be embracing . . . aren't we still waiting for high resolution downloadable (maybe they could call it HRD)? And for the most part, aren't we still waiting for regular CD-resolution downloadable?
Tower was a business and like any other I suppose they were not saints. But There were plenty of good deals to be had during their departmental sales, label sales, and semi annual storewide clearance sales. There was also a sense of community I and others will miss. It might be a conversation you strike up with a fellow jazz shopper about the different musicians you like, and maybe suggest something to each other. Or maybe talking about how we each felt about Coltrane's later period with the guy who worked there and had a jazz show on public radio. Or maybe it was the guy in the blues department who turned me on to Lightning Hopkins. Or when Suzanne Vega gave a free in store concert (true it was to promote her new release, but no one was holding a gun to your head). It was this sense of community a good record store provides and something some of us will miss and may feel sad about. So please forgive us for prefering it. It was something I'll take over a cold mechanical download any day of the week.
Maybe not at your Tower, - but the second that one would walk in the door of my Tower, = you were just another mark, - someone to get ripped off by the industry....
With your feet on the air and your head on the ground, try this trick and spin it, your head'll collapse if there's nothing in it then you'll ask yourself, where is my mind?
Sounds like it was more of an Indy store...There was never a sale worth squat at the one in SF on Market St, - only overpriced, ridiculous, industry tools...
You'd never find a knowledgable staff member at my Tower....
I'm sorry that you lost a good record store, - very un-Tower compared to the nightmare that is the SF store....
With your feet on the air and your head on the ground, try this trick and spin it, your head'll collapse if there's nothing in it then you'll ask yourself, where is my mind?
I guess there was some variance among each one. Ours was pretty good considering it was a chain store. I did notice some drop off in selection and the number of sales starting around the late 90's onwards. I consider Borders (which never has anything but certain selected discs on sale) to be a much bigger rip off than Tower was, and with an overall not as good selection. Luckily I got while the gettin was good (before the major biggies raised retail prices sharply to get more money in response to the supposed loss created by the whole Napster thing). These days my collection is about where I want it to be, but I'll still miss the occaisional trip to Tower.
There are a few indie record stores in southern California, not many.With the demise of Tower, there are no places with halfway decent selections of classical music. Borders and Barnes and Noble have poor small selections.
You may find this a reason to rejoice, as the small market has not been enough to support retail stores, capitalism has triumphed, whatever.
The next step will be for the small classical record labels to go out of business, another triumph of capitalism.
And then the people who have tried to make a living playing music that is not popular can be driven by the forces of capitalism into a new career, maybe as mortgage bankers or some other job that the capitalist economy currently rewards.
I'm a realist and I'm a captialist myself. But I'm not rejoicing.
sounds like the fact that classical music is dying... and that's another issue.I am sorry that that is the case...
My statements about capitalism were more tongue in cheek than anything..
Tower Records, and the record companies that controlled it, - had plenty of opportunities to keep their business viable: greed, laziness, and stupidity killed it...
With your feet on the air and your head on the ground, try this trick and spin it, your head'll collapse if there's nothing in it then you'll ask yourself, where is my mind?
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