The Fall of Tower Records...don't slam your ass in the door on your way out!!

The news in the music industry is buzzing about the recently announced demise of Tower Records. Perhaps you’ve read the story elsewhere and have formed your own opinions.

If you are living under a rock, here’s a link to a press release: Mercury News

And here’s another link with a more objective point of view: Blogcritics.org

For many of us, this is less than ‘news’ as the company had filed Chapter 11 back in August. Some have already heralded the company’s downfall as a result of music downloading. That is rationalization of horse shit of the nth degree. Stop your hankering around that issue and smell the vomit.

The information cited above identifies two other factors involved in Tower’s availability for sale, and they truly outweigh the gravity of music downloading by far.

If you have been in a “record” store lately, the truth that the current glut of industry-sponsored KRAP upon our ears is a grim reality for outlets such as Tower…20 years ago, the experience of spending a segment of your hard-earned cash on a slice of music was a more robust and reliable experience. Now, what do you have? Nu-metal, emo, and Fergie, multiplied almost infinitely. Many of us have been trying to send subtle (and less-than-subtle) messages to the record industry for years: Stop producing SHIT and we will stop avoiding it in the checkout counter.

Tower’s first and foremost internal enemy has always been their under-par business strategy. Why would you pay up to 25% more for a title you can get at Best Buy or Target at a better price? And with better service…Tower has always pretended to be a “little record shop around the corner” by hiring sensitive, sniveling art-fags as clerks and hopelessly moronic college-grad dopes as management. Charge more for the KRAP on your shelves and force us to buy it from people we want to beat up is a GREAT way to stay competitive. I can tell you that the only FAIR DEAL I ever got from Tower Records was from their facility in Shibuya, where I knew I was getting a fair price compared to other locations. The reason: Japan ‘enjoys’ a price-fixed entertainment media structure. You pay 3000 yen for a SADS CD at any record store in Shibuya, whether it’s Tower or not.

My ears are weary of the ‘music downloading’ argument to the point of violent nausea. The industry HAS data that confirms that those who DL are those who make intelligent buying decisions, steering away from Fergie and purchasing items from artists who have more substance. The breakdancers and hip-hop goofballs will spend their cash on the ‘new big thing’ but they will be moving on tomorrow; while some of us will discover bands like maybe MARILLION and seek out their backcatalogue over time. Remember the old days, when a work with SUBSTANCE stayed on the charts for a long time? PINK FLOYD’s “Dark Side of the Moon”…not the greatest album ever made, but if you spent $12 on it, hey…you ARE getting your money’s worth. That Justin Timerblake CD is destined for mold over the same amount of time, count on it. “Dark Side” and its perpetual presence on the top 100 album charts for YEARS confirms what we already know…klassics continue to sell, KRAP does not.

Sayonara, Tower Records…nice job, way to work it out…this company is OUT OF BUSINESS because the record industry has been sending them LEMONS to sell, and they are OUT OF BUSINESS because they didn’t know their business. If ‘music downloading’ had never happened, they still would have sold out. And there WILL be more, mark my words.