RIP: Tower Records, liquidation sales start Saturday

[Woochifer]

Word just came down from the Federal bankruptcy court. Tower Records' assets have been awarded to the Great American Group, which intends to liquidate Tower's inventory and close all of their stores. Sad part is that their $134 million bid was only $500,000 higher than the bid submitted by Trans World Entertainment, which intended to keep most of Tower's stores open.

As it stands, an iconic player in the music industry is about to go dark, In the process, a lot of high profile sites that had served as musical gathering spots for decades that will simply be sold off for the land and 3,000 jobs will go down in the process. Very sad day as music fans now have even fewer choices available at the retail level.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...f155710D57.DTL

[Dusty Chalk]

That sucks. I've probably spent more money there than at any other store.

[anamorphic96]

I spent 5 years working for Tower Records back in the early to mid 90's. This is very sad indeed. As they where the best of all retail record chains to work for and shop at. They truly prided themselves on having the deepest inventory of all chains. They where also good to there employess with certain benefits that others did not offer.

They had individual buyers for the different genres and could tailor stores to there main clientle as well as maintain a broad selection of all other genres. I will trully miss the classical music rooms and some of the buyers. No other chain offered this except for Virgin. But virgin never had the depth that Tower had with inventory.

[paul_pci]

This is very sad indeed. I was just in Sound Factor today talking to the guys there about it. Now that I'm on a classical kick, that will relegate me further into online venues. I'm going out of town tomorrow, so I may not get by one of the stores until next week.

Hey, anamorphic, I didn't know you're in North Hollywood. We're practically neighbors.

[cavalier]

I dunno, I'm not so disappointed. $18.99 for new CD's? $29.99 for new DVD's? I'm not going to argue their selection, it's fabulous, but I almost never bought anything there because the prices were so outrageous. They set up huge stores in high traffic, high value real estate areas and charged an arm and a leg for something you can get for essentially 1/2 the cost on Amazon.com. I'd visit the store frequently, I've lived near two of them in my lifetime, but I can count the number of times they've swiped my credit card on one hand.

[musicoverall]

I dunno, I'm not so disappointed. $18.99 for new CD's? $29.99 for new DVD's? I'm not going to argue their selection, it's fabulous, but I almost never bought anything there because the prices were so outrageous. They set up huge stores in high traffic, high value real estate areas and charged an arm and a leg for something you can get for essentially 1/2 the cost on Amazon.com. I'd visit the store frequently, I've lived near two of them in my lifetime, but I can count the number of times they've swiped my credit card on one hand.

I miss the old days of going shopping at record/CD shops. I now buy 98% of my music online, even though I realize that I'm contributing to the problem of stores like Tower going out of business. And they're not alone, they're simply the highest profile. I've spoken to a few retailers and the ones that don't have a HUGE internet presence are not renewing their leases - or won't when the leases are up. The internet has cut immensely into their profits. And why? Because I and others like Cavalier can find the same titles for much less on the internet, sometimes for a small fraction if we buy used. And why not buy used since CD's aren't like LP's and we don't have to worry nearly as much about damage.

I feel for these retailers - I really do. But I can't afford to pay $15-16 for a CD that I can find used on the 'net for $7-8, particularly since nearly all of my disposable income goes for music software. Many retailers bolster their brick and mortar with the internet and those folks will likely prosper. With Amazon, Ebay and Half.com around, retailers can get their inventory to a lot more people than they can in their home area. I do tend to buy a lot of stuff via the 'net from retailers rather than private sellers, when I can. And I often wonder just how long it will be before we're buying nearly all of our personal goods online...probably using a credit card chip installed in our fingertips!

I hate to see Tower go but as Cavalier said, they got very little of my money because they demanded too much of it. Competition was high and as for their huge inventory... well, the internet has many, many times the inventory Tower had and at a much more competitive cost. There must be an answer out there somewhere....

[Woochifer]

I just passed by a Tower location yesterday and the signs are up, with people on sidewalks waving those tacky sandwich board signs with "UP TO 30% OFF! STORE CLOSING!" emblazoned. Hardly an appropriate way to go out for a company that has meant so much to the music industry over the years.

The migration over to online retailing is really a sad trend for me personally. I'm probably never going to migrate online for most of my music purchases simply because I like the sense of discovery that a good music retailer can provide. So many times I would walk into Tower (and more recently, Amoeba Music) looking for a specific title, and walk out with two or three other titles that I found while thumbing through the bins. Tower going under simply means that I have far fewer options available.

Despite my continued patronage of specialty music stores, I too contributed to Tower's demise because I shifted my music shopping over to other stores many years ago. In the Bay Area, Tower has had to compete with stores with larger selection such as Amoeba Music and Virgin, and retailers with lower prices such as Rasputin Music. More recently, I started shopping at Tower again primarily because they continued to stock SACD and DVD-A, and I had moved to Silicon Valley where Tower was more dominant. But, for selection and price, I had already gone elsewhere.

In other markets though, I can see a huge hole in the local music landscape with Tower's exit. Some places like Stockton and Fresno, Tower's the only game in town if you're looking for titles in a broad range of genres. Wherever they are, Tower's also made a point of supporting local artists and local labels. For example, their Fresno store had a section set aside for Central Valley artists, which included a lot of self-distributed and indie label titles. The mall-based retailers don't do this, neither do the big box stores, nor Amazon. Even online, unless you know who these artists are and know where to find their online store (that is, if they even have one), this eliminates a very prominent promotional channel for promising artists especially in smaller markets.

An unfortunate byproduct of Tower's demise is the effect that it will have on smaller niche labels. Tower's high profile stores and in-store marketing gave great exposure for artists on these smaller labels. A Hollywood Reporter article indicated that Tower accounted for 40-50% of the sales for some of these labels.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...l?nav=hcmodule

[nightflier]

An unfortunate byproduct of Tower's demise is the effect that it will have on smaller niche labels. Tower's high profile stores and in-store marketing gave great exposure for artists on these smaller labels. A Hollywood Reporter article indicated that Tower accounted for 40-50% of the sales for some of these labels

One thing that I always appreciated when visiting record stores is the artwork, not just on the walls, but also on the records. When CD's came out, this was curtailed quite a bit, but there was still some artwork on the CD inserts. I remember when software B&M stores like Egghead were going away, I saw the writing on the wall as a graphic artist and switched carreers. My friends who stayed, got into web design, but even that is going away with the advent of database and template driven sites.

Now with the demise of B&M record stores and everything moving to similar looking websites, it seems that all graphic art is dying too. Last weekend I was spinning some records and ran across my stack of Iron Maiden LP's (complete collection, including a number of picture disks, remember those?). It's not really my type of music anymore, but I can't bring myself to chuck the records. I remember waiting in line for hours in front of Tower & Rasputin records to buy new releases. Long before getting home, on the bus-ride home, we would all be oogling the "forbidden art" on the covers. This was part of the enjoyment of music that is now dying out.

What we really need to ask ourselves, as more and more of our entertainment is digitized and commoditized, is what is still real? This isn't just the demize of digital art, but possibly all art. For example, I own several abstract oils, including a great painting of Miles, but my friends are already suggesting that soon I'll be replacing them with a flat screen that can display a different art piece every day. My attempt to explain that quantity & choice is not as rewarding as quality & originality, only results in blank stares. The demize of Tower is a precursor to many more disappearances. One day, we will only have memories of when we still held the actual art in our hands....

[Dusty Chalk]

The funny thing is, they have no-one to blame but the record industry. I mean, you can do online shopping for anything, but none of the other things you shop for are ever going to be completely replaced with the tactile shopping experience of actually browsing in the store. Why? Because people are willing to pay for a little more for that experience (I know I am). Just not a lot more.

[Woochifer]

One thing that I always appreciated when visiting record stores is the artwork, not just on the walls, but also on the records. When CD's came out, this was curtailed quite a bit, but there was still some artwork on the CD inserts. I remember when software B&M stores like Egghead were going away, I saw the writing on the wall as a graphic artist and switched carreers. My friends who stayed, got into web design, but even that is going away with the advent of database and template driven sites.

Actually, I think the demise of the LP pretty much eliminated any and all impact that the album cover artwork had. You just can't reduce the canvas by more than 80% and expect it to resonate the same way that it did with the LP. In the LP heyday, an album cover could actually generate controversy or inspire great design. Just look at the simplicity of Pink Floyd's album cover for The Wall and then with the gatefold into the great artwork and handscrawled lettering.

The CD package just doesn't have that impact. I mean, when was the last time a CD cover generated the kind of controversy that the Scorpions' Virgin Killer or Roger Waters' Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking created? (On that Roger Waters album, Tower was one of the few stores that stocked the uncensored album cover version with the nude woman on the cover)

Now with the demise of B&M record stores and everything moving to similar looking websites, it seems that all graphic art is dying too. Last weekend I was spinning some records and ran across my stack of Iron Maiden LP's (complete collection, including a number of picture disks, remember those?). It's not really my type of music anymore, but I can't bring myself to chuck the records. I remember waiting in line for hours in front of Tower & Rasputin records to buy new releases. Long before getting home, on the bus-ride home, we would all be oogling the "forbidden art" on the covers. This was part of the enjoyment of music that is now dying out.

I indeed remember picture discs, but I never bought any of them because they sounded horrible. Now I do kinda wish that I'd bought more of them when they were available. Another interesting form of artwork was when some LPs were laser etched. The laser etchings reflected light in a rainbow pattern. The soundtrack for Superman II had the "S" logo etched onto the album, Styx actually had the entire cover artwork for their Paradise Theater album etched onto the LP, and Split Enz's True Colours had some cool artwork as well. The nice thing about the etching is that it did not affect the sound quality of the album.

I don't think that graphic art is dying. There's still plenty of it out there. It's just that much of it is now on volatile digital media, which lacks the permanence that you got with high quality printing. Interesting though, the rise of digital media has not curtailed paper consumption (at least it didn't the last time I checked a few years ago), so the paperless world that was envisioned 20 years ago still hasn't come to fruition.

What we really need to ask ourselves, as more and more of our entertainment is digitized and commoditized, is what is still real? This isn't just the demize of digital art, but possibly all art. For example, I own several abstract oils, including a great painting of Miles, but my friends are already suggesting that soon I'll be replacing them with a flat screen that can display a different art piece every day. My attempt to explain that quantity & choice is not as rewarding as quality & originality, only results in blank stares. The demize of Tower is a precursor to many more disappearances. One day, we will only have memories of when we still held the actual art in our hands....

Well, I think there are many instances over the ages where you could argue that shifts to mass distribution affected the quality of the art. Before printing presses, you had books that were handscrawled. Sure, handwritten books had a higher level of artistry and direct connection to the author, but the mass distribution afforded by printing presses greatly expanded the reach of literature.

Same could be said for vinyl records. Before Edison's wax cylinder, the only way to enjoy music was live. Indeed, the listening experience of a live performance can never be fully captured by a recording, but now millions of people can enjoy a performance that at one time was reserved only for a privileged few that saw the performance live.

I see digital media in a similar light, in that it has democratized the distribution in nearly all forms of entertainment. People can now enjoy a whole world of options without leaving home. Of course, that's the contradiction in that you no longer have central gathering spots with gatekeepers like a Tower Records showing you which artists they want to you try. It's now decentralized, and the experiences are now more individual than shared communal rite of passage. I mean, when was the last time you saw a line in front of a box office for concert tickets?

I think Tower was simply a case of a mismanaged business that overleveraged itself on unprofitable expansion ventures. It not for the debt load that they carried, the company probably could have continued to operate profitably if the majority of their stores indeed operated in the black as they claimed. Not sure if I would generalize it as far as you have, but indeed a lot of changes out there that are fundamentally changing the art and entertainment world, many of them not for the better.

[shokhead]

What did them in is everybody else had much cheaper prices,thats the bottom line. I never saw more then a handfull at the one by me in all the years going by or in. BB,CC and online prices killed them off.

[Groundbeef]

I don't think that graphic art is dying. There's still plenty of it out there. It's just that much of it is now on volatile digital media, which lacks the permanence that you got with high quality printing. Interesting though, the rise of digital media has not curtailed paper consumption (at least it didn't the last time I checked a few years ago)

I am not sure that there will ever be a "paperless office". I for one cannot read but about 1 page of anything online. I then need to print it out. Sony just announced that they are producing a new hand-held "electronic book". This is to replace the bomb that they sold last in 1999. The new "book" is reported to have a very long battery life, etc. However I won't be buying it. I like the feel of a book in my hands. I like putting it down, and not have to power it up when I want to read it. I can loan it to friends or give them away when done. Tough to do w/ a $350 "electronic book".

I see digital media in a similar light, in that it has democratized the distribution in nearly all forms of entertainment. People can now enjoy a whole world of options without leaving home. Of course, that's the contradiction in that you no longer have central gathering spots with gatekeepers like a Tower Records showing you which artists they want to you try. It's now decentralized, and the experiences are now more individual than shared communal rite of passage. I mean, when was the last time you saw a line in front of a box office for concert tickets?

You don't need to stand in line for a concert anymore Wooch, you can order them from home. You only need to go in line if you want to avoid the ticket fees from Ticketmaster or the like. Live music still sells well. It is true that getting an album may be more individual, but concerts are still exciting and fun to watch. Incidently when I last saw Pink FLoyd, the lines were huge and 50,000 seats in Soldiers Field sold out in 2 hours. It was raining concert night, but the show was awesome.

[Woochifer]

What did them in is everybody else had much cheaper prices,thats the bottom line. I never saw more then a handfull at the one by me in all the years going by or in. BB,CC and online prices killed them off.

That would depend on the location -- i.e., whether there are enough shoppers nearby to support a deep catalog music store, how much competition there is close by, etc. In areas that have a large population and are not well served by other music stores, Tower does very well. This would include Silicon Valley, where Tower's really the only deep catalog music retailer that serves the area.

Like I said, Tower claimed that most of their stores were operating profitably. It was their debt load incurred by expanding into unprofitable ventures that actually killed them off. Well over half of all music is still sold through retail stores, and places like BB and CC lack the selection that Tower had. If you're looking for the latest hits or mainstream titles, BB and CC will provide those at lower prices. But, if you're looking for indie label items, imports, or more obscure artists, forget about the big box stores. Tower had always supported up and coming musicians, and while other independent music stores still do, they lack the high profile and national presence that Tower had. Their demise certainly doesn't help the cause for new music.

I am not sure that there will ever be a "paperless office". I for one cannot read but about 1 page of anything online. I then need to print it out. Sony just announced that they are producing a new hand-held "electronic book". This is to replace the bomb that they sold last in 1999. The new "book" is reported to have a very long battery life, etc. However I won't be buying it. I like the feel of a book in my hands. I like putting it down, and not have to power it up when I want to read it. I can loan it to friends or give them away when done. Tough to do w/ a $350 "electronic book".

The topic's been tossed around for at least the last 20 years, and I also doubt that it will ever come to pass. PCs and graphic interfaces were supposed to replace hard copy, but from what I've seen, we seem to be consuming more paper than ever.

You don't need to stand in line for a concert anymore Wooch, you can order them from home. You only need to go in line if you want to avoid the ticket fees from Ticketmaster or the like. Live music still sells well. It is true that getting an album may be more individual, but concerts are still exciting and fun to watch. Incidently when I last saw Pink FLoyd, the lines were huge and 50,000 seats in Soldiers Field sold out in 2 hours. It was raining concert night, but the show was awesome.

You seem to have missed my point. The concert ticket example just illustrates how digital technology has decentralized distribution to the point that communal points of access are no longer needed for things like concert tickets and increasingly with music as well. It provides convenience and a more democratized point of access. But, the positives of those communal gathering spots are now lost for future generations.

With concert tickets, some of my favorite youthful experiences involved camping out overnight in front of box offices, not because I enjoyed sleeping on a lawnchair but because I was making friends and face-to-face conversation with strangers that shared my interest in music. With music stores, you had a gatekeeper that promoted the music and sought to introduce the shoppers to certain titles, along with employees that could make recommendations. Buying music online is a more decentralized experience that works fine if you already know what you're looking for, but doesn't present the same world of discovery that a good music store can.

[Groundbeef]

You seem to have missed my point. The concert ticket example just illustrates how digital technology has decentralized distribution to the point that communal points of access are no longer needed for things like concert tickets and increasingly with music as well. It provides convenience and a more democratized point of access. But, the positives of those communal gathering spots are now lost for future generations.

With concert tickets, some of my favorite youthful experiences involved camping out overnight in front of box offices, not because I enjoyed sleeping on a lawnchair but because I was making friends and face-to-face conversation with strangers that shared my interest in music. With music stores, you had a gatekeeper that promoted the music and sought to introduce the shoppers to certain titles, along with employees that could make recommendations. Buying music online is a more decentralized experience that works fine if you already know what you're looking for, but doesn't present the same world of discovery that a good music store can.

Fair point. Just missed it.

[Dusty Chalk]

Discounts just went up -- 15% rock/pop, 20% jazz, I forget classical, 30% game hardware.

[paul_pci]

Discounts just went up -- 15% rock/pop, 20% jazz, I forget classical, 30% game hardware.

Thanks for the heads up. I'm going to the Sherman Oaks store tonight to check out what's left. I'll report back.

[shokhead]

I went today and it says throughout,up to 15%,up to 30%. Its the most people i've seen in there. David Bowie live DVD-A @25.99 before 15% off wasnt enough of a deal for me.

[nightflier]

PCs and graphic interfaces were supposed to replace hard copy, but from what I've seen, we seem to be consuming more paper than ever.

Actually, the reason that everyone didn't shift to paperless is because there was plenty of money to go around and very little concern for the environment. Futurists are not economists, but they weren't wrong about the coming change. Now that budgets are getting tighter in the public sector (and to a lesser extent in the private sector), the drive to digitize as much as possible is well underway. At my office, we are installing print management software to curtail excessive printing & faxing, all records are being scanned in, all graphics/marketing/design proofing is done online, and letters/contracts/legal documents are routed via the network to the various reviewers. We still use paper, but it is far less than we did 5 or 10 years ago. No, paper will never go away completely, but it will certainly become rare.

On the music front, I am seeing what appears to be a new interest in vinyl. I know not everyone here agrees with my assesment, so maybe it is just a fad-ish upsurge, perhaps just a rebellion against the tidal wave of digitization. The demize of Tower is a harbinger of the eventual demize of the digital disk (CD/DVD/SACD,etc.). It won't be long before people will stop buying movies altogether and just rely on subscription-based automatic rentals. I just signed up for a free intro to Blockbuster-online, and while the selection sucks it is probably just fine for the average Joe. That said, I am so disgusted with commercial TV, that the ability to watch my shows commercial free through a rental service, sure is enticing.

So I'm torn. It will be tough to resist the digitization and commoditization of entertainment. If it weren't for live music, I would probably be pretty depressed. I have tickets to several concerts this winter season, so that will be a nice respite from the digital world. There, I can close my eyes and pretend I am listening to Mozart's Requiem as if I was sitting next to his family at his funeral.

Regarding digitized books, the thought disheartens me too. But the convenience of being able to store a whole library of books in a single tablet will win many people over. I'll keep buying books as long as I can, but I have to expect that Barnes & Borders will soon be closing their doors too...

[paul_pci]

Yeah, so I went Friday evening and, as Shokhead reports, 15% off of rock, classical, dvds and 20% off on jazz. Yeah, the discount didn't seem worth it, although, I did see a lot more people toting Tower Records bags than normal. I'm going to hedge my bets and wait for discounts to rise and see if I can get some killer deals, and if not, so be it.

[shokhead]

Ditto.

[PeruvianSkies]

Isn't it sad when they take 15-20% off and it still isn't worth it? That might explain why they are closing...because even when they liquidate people can still find it cheaper at just about any online location.

[SlumpBuster]

A fitting homage to the lost art of album covers:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fP83IrERdP4

[nightflier]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fP83IrERdP4

Slump,

Great find. I remember owning most of those LP's. I replaced most of them with CD's, but I now wish I haden't done that...

[Woochifer]

Dropped by a couple of Tower locations this week, and the discounts are still in the 15-20% range for most music and videos. The stores don't yet look like carcuses, but the inventory's definitely thinning out.

The closeout prices are a bit of a tradeoff because while these prices are lower than Tower's tagged prices, these liquidation prices are actually higher than Tower's pre-liquidation prices on sale items which typically ran at least 30% off. While the regular prices at Tower indeed were on the high side, they had good sale prices, and at any given time Tower would always have new releases, spotlight artists, specific labels, and/or specific genres on sale at any given time.

[Dusty Chalk]

They seem to increment on Fridays -- everything is at least 20% off at my local location.

But you're right -- people seem to've already raided the place. Sucks. I'm thinking I'm not going to be getting any deals out of this.