Tower Records

This article is about the retail music chain. For the 1960s record label, see Tower Records (record label).
Tower Records
Music retailer
Industry Retail
Founded 1960 (as a retail music chain, defunct 2006)
1995 (as online retailer)
Headquarters Sacramento, California, USA
Products DVDs, CDs, videos, video games, posters, books, collectibles, and accessories.

Tower Records was a retail music chain based in Sacramento, California. It currently exists as an international franchise and an online music store.[1] From 1960 until 2006, Tower also operated retail stores in the United States, which closed when Tower Records filed for bankruptcy and liquidation. Tower.com was purchased by a separate entity and was not affected by the retail store closings.

History

Tower was founded in 1960 by Russell Solomon in Sacramento, California. The store was named after his father's drugstore, which shared a building and name with the Tower Theater,[2] where Solomon first started selling records. The first Tower Records store was opened in 1960 on Watt Avenue in Sacramento. By 1976, Solomon had opened Tower Books, Posters, and Plants at 1600 Broadway, next door to Tower Records. It was also one of the first retailers to move online in 1995 as Tower.com.[3]

Tower Records on the Sunset Strip

Seven years after its founding, Tower Records expanded to San Francisco, opening a store in what was originally a grocery store at Bay and Columbus streets. The chain eventually expanded internationally to include stores in the United Kingdom, Canada, Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, Ireland, Israel, United Arab Emirates, Mexico, Colombia, Ecuador and Argentina. The Tower Records stores in Japan split off from the main chain and are now independent. Arguably the most famous Tower Records outlet was the one located on the north side of Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood, California.[4][5]

In addition to CDs and cassette tapes, stores also sold DVDs, video games, accessories, toys, and electronic gadgets like mp3 players, while a few Tower Records locations sold books as well, such as the Sacramento, Brea and Mountain View stores in California, as well as stores in Nashville, New York, Seattle, and Portland, Oregon.

In New York City, Tower Records operated a suite of stores on and near lower Broadway. The main store was located at the southeast corner of East 4th St and Broadway, consisted of four levels, and sold mainstream items. The Tower Records Annex was in the same building, but located 'in the back' at the southwest corner of East 4th St and Lafayette, and stocked items that were older and a bit more obscure. (As the CD replaced the LP, vinyl moved from the main store to the annex.) The third store was called Tower Video, and was located on the southeast corner of East 4th St and Lafayette; it specialized in video (for a while, the second floor of this location also sold books). The main store in the East Village was famous in the 1980s for selling albums of European new wave bands not yet popular in the U.S. and was a noted hangout for teenagers from the wider metropolitan area. Their location near Lincoln Center was a magnet for those working in the field of Musical Theater

The company published a music magazine, Pulse!, which was distributed free in its stores.

In 2005, the company began using "scan and listen" stations in its stores. These stations allowed customers to audition a CD, to listen to audio samples from the disc, and it allowed them to search for particular songs, albums and artists. This model of listening station is still used at the Arizona-based chain Zia Records.[6]

In 2006, the company introduced the Tower Insider program. The program was free of charge and allowed the customer to receive a membership card which could be scanned with each purchase, allowing the customer to receive coupons and notification of special deals via e-mail.

Bankruptcy

Tower Records entered bankruptcy for the first time in 2004. Factors cited were the heavy debt incurred during its aggressive expansion in the 1990s, growing competition from mass discounters, and internet piracy.[7] Mismanagement, managerial incompetence, and crippling restrictions from the first bankruptcy deal also contributed to Tower's demise.[8]

Some observers took a pragmatic view. As Robert Moog, inventor of the Moog synthesizer, has stated: "I'm sorry if Tower Records' and Blockbuster's sales plummet. On the other hand, it wasn't that long ago that those megastore chains drove a lot of neighborhood record stores out of business."[9]

The debt was estimated to be between $80 million and $100 million; assets totaled just over $100 million in February 2004.[10]

Liquidation

A liquidating Tower Records store in Portland, Oregon.

On August 20, 2006, Tower Records filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy[11] for the second time in order to facilitate a purchase of the company prior to the holiday shopping season.

On October 6, 2006, Great American Group won an auction of the company's assets and commenced liquidation proceedings the following day, which included going-out-of-business sales at all U.S. Tower Records locations, the last of which closed on December 22, 2006. The Tower Records website was sold separately.[12]

The managers of FYE, a music store chain based in shopping malls, had negotiated a deal to acquire the two historic Tower locations in its home base of Sacramento, but they later backed out, stating that the "leases aren't what we thought they were". FYE did acquire the lease of the West End Avenue store in Nashville,[13] which eventually closed in 2011. A Tower Records in Torrance, CA was also taken over by FYE which continues to operate.

Rasputin Music, a new and used music and video store based in the San Francisco Bay Area, is expanding in the Central Valley of California by acquiring the leases for the former Tower Records stores in Fresno and Stockton. The Tower Records store in Stockton, located at 6623 Pacific Avenue, closed its doors permanently on December 19, 2006. A Rasputin Music store replaced it on April 28, 2007. Rasputin Music also operated the former Tower Records store in Mountain View as one of its own through the end of 2011, and its store in Pleasant Hill moved into the former Tower Records store in Concord, California. Despite being converted to a Rasputin's, it still retained the Tower Records sign with a note next to the door stating that the sign was a "historic anomaly" and that they chose to keep it up to honor the former Tower location. The Concord Rasputin's moved back to its Pleasant Hill location in 2013.

Other stores

The Landmark Plaza Tower Records Store in Alexandria, Virginia was permanently closed on December 18, 2006, and the Tysons Corner, Virginia, store permanently closed on December 21, 2006. The noted 24-year-old store in Washington, D.C. (Foggy Bottom) closed down the next day, as did the store in Atlanta, Georgia.

On Friday, December 22, 2006, the last Tower Records store in New York City closed down. It had been located at 1961 Broadway, one block north of Lincoln Center on Manhattan's West Side. It closed permanently along with all of the other remaining Tower Records stores in the United States. The final Tower Records store (in the Pacific Time Zone) to be closed was the one in Mountain View, which closed at mid-afternoon.

One building in Sacramento had been a Tower Records store for 40 years, and the lot across the street had been the location where Solomon began selling records in 1941.

R5 Records closed on June 4, 2010, and was sold to rival Dimple Records, which will reopen the store in mid-July 2010.[14]

The Tower Records building in Boston, located at the intersection of Newbury Street and Massachusetts Avenue, was instrumental in the conversion of the former street's commercial value. The eight-story building, renovated by Frank Gehry in the late 80s, is prominently visible from eastbound Interstate 90. The store (which occupied the first five stories) featured gold stars of Boston artists (including Gang Starr, New Kids on the Block, and Yo-Yo Ma) embedded in the front landing. Virgin Megastore took over the store from 2002 to 2007. The space is currently unoccupied.

Online return

On-line merchant Caiman, Inc., reopened the website from Montreal, Quebec, on June 1, 2007. This company also announced plans to reopen the stores themselves—opening stores in Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco within the next nine months. They hired former Tower buyer Kevin Hawkins to assist with the re-opening. (Hawkins, however, along with former Tower employee George Scarlett, then left Caiman.) In 2009, Richard Flynn was hired as President. The website remains based in Montreal but the relaunch of the brand never moved forward.[15]

International stores

Canada

Tower Records operated in Canada in the mid 1990s with a flagship store at the Toronto Eaton Centre and closed in 2001.

Japan

Tower Shibuya store.

In 1979, Tower Records in Japan started its business as the Japan Branch of MTS Incorporated. The following year, Sapporo Store, the first in Japan opened. In 1981, Japanese subsidiary Tower Records Japan Inc. (TRJ) was established.

In October, 2002, TRJ went independent from the international chain by management buyout. The bankruptcy of Tower Records in the U.S. in 2006 did not affect TRJ as it had been completely independent. As of October 1, 2014, TRJ maintains 85 directly operated store locations throughout Japan,[16] including 10 Tower Mini Stores, and the Shibuya Store in Tokyo (moved to the current location in March, 1995) which is said to be one of the biggest music retail outlets in the world, occupying selling space of 5,000 m² (9 floors).[17] TRJ also publishes free magazines Tower, bounce, and intoxicate directly and through its subsidiary NMNL.

In addition to being the leading CD retailer in Japan, TRJ was the majority stakeholder in Napster Japan, a joint venture between TRJ and Napster LLC. On March 1, 2010, Napster Japan and TRJ announced that Napster Japan would terminate all of its services on May 31, 2010 due to the difficulty in covering the costs for maintaining the required systems to continue the services.[18][19]

Tower Records Japan has a subsidiary record label called T-Palette Records, which specializes in idol performers.[20]

Ireland

Tower Records is operated in Ireland by Record & Discs Ltd. under a licensed franchise of MTS Incorporated (USA).[21] As of 2014, two stores still operate in Ireland both located in Dublin, one on Dawson Street, with a café upstairs called "Sound Bites" [22] and the other on O'Connell Street upstairs in Easons. It is proposed that Tower Records could expand to other cities in Ireland in the coming years.[23]

Thailand

TowerRecords had been in Thailand for decades until it ran out of business. One of the biggest megastores located on the top floor CentralWorld superstore in Bangkok. It was one of the biggest retail stores that offered imported CDs and music accessories.[24]

Mexico

The first Tower Records store in Mexico opened in the mid 1990s in the Zona Rosa area featuring 3 floors and a live DJ. After international bankrutpcy, the stores were acquired by Promotora Musical, a retail company owned by Grupo Carso, the same owner of Mixup record stores. There are Tower Records stores in Mexico City (Gran Sur and Mundo E), Puebla (Las Animas) and Monterrey (Paseo San Pedro).

United Kingdom

Originally Tower Records was just a London-based concern, with a first store in Kensington High Street in 1984 being followed the next year by a 25,000-square-foot (2,300 m2) flagship outlet at 1 Piccadilly Circus and later two more, smaller outlets at Whiteleys in Bayswater, and Kingston. However by the start of the 1990s the chain had grown to encompass a number of other stores, with large entertainment stores also selling movies, books, magazines and games in Birmingham and Glasgow, as well as a number of smaller stores that had been purchased from rival American retailer Sam Goody when it had left the UK marketplace (for example of this express format—Weston-super-Mare).

However with tough trading conditions in the UK market, as well as the company's trouble in the States, the firm followed Sam Goody in retreating from the UK market.[25] The London stores in Piccadilly and Kensington were sold to Virgin Group in 2003, who for a while traded under the Tower brand at the former site until the store could be fully refurbished, while the other stores were closed. The store was subsequently renamed Zavvi in September 2007 after a management buyout of the Virgin Megastores. The Piccadilly store closed on Wednesday, 14 January 2009 by the administrators.

References

  1. ↑ As Tower Fades at Home, It Still Shines Abroad
  2. ↑ "Tower Theatre Homepage". Retrieved 2006-08-26.
  3. ↑ "Tower Records Turns To Digital Downloads". Rap News Network. June 28, 2006.
  4. ↑ Vincent, Roger (November 10, 2014) "Gibson to open store at former Tower Records site in West Hollywood" Los Angeles Times
  5. ↑ Branson-Potts, Hailey (November 19, 2013) "No historic designation for Tower Records store on Sunset Strip" Los Angeles Times
  6. ↑ "Tower Records Deploys TouchMedia’s In-Store Digital Media Stations". TouchMedia. Retrieved August 22, 2011.
  7. ↑ "Tower Records Files For Bankruptcy". CBS News. February 9, 2004.
  8. ↑ Jens F. Laurson & George A. Pieler (2006-11-15). "The Tower that Fell". Forbes. Retrieved 2008-12-09.
  9. ↑ Synthesizer Pioneer: Dr. Robert Moog by Ben Kettlewell, March/April 2003 ArtistPro Magazine, p. 47
  10. ↑ "Tower Records declares bankruptcy". BBC News. February 9, 2004. Retrieved May 25, 2010.
  11. ↑ Dow Jones Newswires (2006-08-22). "Tower Records files for bankruptcy". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 2006-08-22.
  12. ↑ Tower Records to be liquidated
  13. ↑ Buh-Bye, Tower West End; Hello f.y.e
  14. ↑ Bob Shallit: Russ Solomon's presence will be felt at new Dimple site in Sacramento The Sacramento Bee, June 5, 2010
  15. ↑ http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2009/12/22/81084/tower-records-finds-second-life.html
  16. ↑ Tower Records Store Information (in Japanese)
  17. ↑ Tower Records Shibuya Store press release dated June, 2000 (in Japanese)
  18. ↑ ナップスタージャパンのサービス終了に関するお知らせ (in Japanese). March 1, 2010. Retrieved August 23, 2010.
  19. ↑ ナップスタージャパンの全サービスが5月末に終了 －終了後は楽曲再生不可。システム投資が困難なため. Impress AV Watch (in Japanese). March 1, 2010. Retrieved August 23, 2010.
  20. ↑ "タワレコのアイドルレーベル感謝祭が大盛況". Billboard Daily News (Billboard Japan). 2012-12-11. Retrieved 2012-12-12.
  21. ↑ http://www.towerrecords.ie/aboutus.asp
  22. ↑ <rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/#!/Tower_Records/status/6656031660707840</rel>
  23. ↑ http://www.hotpress.com/news/Tower-Records-optimistic-about-music-retail-future/9519865.html
  24. ↑ http://www.centralworld.co.th/en/index.aspx
  25. ↑ Mary Fagan, Tower Records to sell remaining British sites to Virgin, Daily Telegraph, 26 January 2003

External links

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