daregan said:Go hide the good stuff now, so that it's still around when the sale really gets some legs.

Don't give away my secret!!!

How about I hide the entire store?
daregan said:Go hide the good stuff now, so that it's still around when the sale really gets some legs.

JustinR said:I've shopped at Tower B&M in the past, and you certainly can find some offbeat stuff there, but they're still lacking compared to most specialized independent record shops. Here in Philadelphia, the big Tower Records on South Street is the mainstream store compared to smaller ones on the same block like Repo Records, Spaceboy, or 611 Records (or, if you travel a few blocks further AKA Music). It would bother me a lot more if any of those went out of business.

I shall consider you bothered then as in Philadelphia Spaceboy shuttered its doors over a month ago.

As for folks searching for deals, actually at a number of stores it will be difficult to locate any "Top 40 Garbage" as the four majors (yes I know, cartel/crap factories/etc/etc) all stopped shipping product to Tower since the first week of August. What you will find (at least hopefully what I'm hoping to find) is out-of-print titles, rare classical albums and a few scattered imports. Not to mention toys, books and box sets. Just something else fun to consider in the "screw the major labels" mindset many folks share - as many of these large music retailers close their doors, think of the artists, odds are few(er) if any artists will see royalities on product sold during these liquidations as first in line to get paid, the creditors...ie the labels. And for the sake of keeping on topic the Philly broad street store staff (reliable or not, TBD) is said they have until mid-December to close out the store...

grtgrfx said:fatoo said:thanks for the post. i went in to the tower in sherman oaks, CA earlier today and books even with the 20% discount were still about 30-40% more expensive than the same books on overstock or any other decent online retailer. no wonder that dump is going out of business. goodbye and good riddance tower. hopefully sometime in the next few months some decent deals will actually come through.

Well, obviously you don't get it. Tower and all its assets was bought by a liquidator; their previously discounted merchandise was raised to full list because the liquidator wants their money out of the company NOW, and they aren't competing with online overstock sellers. They will probably lower their prices 10% every week or two until everything's sold. There will be no restocking.

The best time to shop may be 3-4 weeks from now, when actual bargains will finally be available. The risk is that the longer you wait, the more likely the chance is that the items you'd want to buy will be sold out. In a few months the stores will be shuttered and empty, and it's a loss for all music lovers, but that's the way the business went. Score another one for WalMart and its ilk. At least us urbanites can still go to Virgin Megastores...I hear (owner) Richard Branson has deep pockets.

Thanks for explaining how liquadation works. You could just have quoted the wikipedia entry for liquidation or any other definition while you were at it. I understand how liquidation works and I realize that someone else is in charge of Tower's merchandise now. However, my point was that Tower was a ripoff and still is a ripoff. And as you referenced in your post, Tower cannot compete with Target/WalMart on volume pricing or Amazon on niche items so that's why they're done for. I also doubt Branson will keep Virgin Megastores regardless of his deep pockets if they start losing money anyway. You don't get deep pockets by throwing money away.

What a shame. Back in the mid to late 80's, I bought most of my CDs at Tower, and before that, LPs. The place was just cool to go into, with the stacks of records everywhere, and all of the unique stuff, and the back catalog of singles. Plu sthey had their own free version of Rolling Stone magazine, Pulse.

U2 filming the video on the roof of the Sunset Strip location, the adult classical musical section in the back, and just the selection. They had more than anyone. It is like In and Out Burger going out of business.

shame. tower was one of the few (if only) good music stores that you could pick up CD's that weren't on TRL's top 10 list.
They had a great range of music.. shame (especally since I've got one near me).

jimrome said:What a shame. Back in the mid to late 80's, I bought most of my CDs at Tower, and before that, LPs. The place was just cool to go into, with the stacks of records everywhere, and all of the unique stuff, and the back catalog of singles. Plu sthey had their own free version of Rolling Stone magazine, Pulse.

U2 filming the video on the roof of the Sunset Strip location, the adult classical musical section in the back, and just the selection. They had more than anyone. It is like In and Out Burger going out of business.I used to live with easy access to many good record stores including Virgin, Strawberries, Tower and independents. The Towers near me each had a separate room for classical music but I don't remember any adult material in there. It probably would have gotten many more kids interested in the classical repertoire!

At least where I was, Virgin usually had more of the stuff I was interested in, better prices and better special order services.

peetah said:I shall consider you bothered then as in Philadelphia Spaceboy shuttered its doors over a month ago.Yeah, that's bothersome. Now I understand why R5 stopped listing Spaceboy as a place to pick up show tickets.

I went to the Tower in NE Philadelphia today. All CDs and Music DVDs (music videos and such) were 20% off. The best values seemed to be in the Music DVDs section. Movie DVDs were mostly 20%, too, but list price -20% + 7% tax isn't really a deal compared to shopping on line.

i remember when the tower first opened in my area, many years ago. couldn't believe they could stay open the way the employees were ripping them off. i had a freind who was the store manager, his bandmate and roommate was the head of security. they would sell me anything in the store for $5. i must have got 10k out of that store. and i was just one customer. i think they came up like 300k in shortages in one quarter. must have been the high prices keeping them afloat.

It's really too bad that Tower and other smaller music stores have had to close their doors. What makes no sense to me is how the record companies can keep on justifying retailers charging upwards of 17.99 a CD.

Speaking of U2 mentioned in an earlier post here is proof to my point, from the best buy website U2 Rattle and Hum DVD 7.99, CD 13.99. hmm, seems like a no brainer to me lower the price to where people would want to buy it.