COPLLAPSING TOWER

posted by James Reel

    The bankruptcy of Tower Records will have absolutely no impact in Tucson, aside from those few people who order from it online (and they can easily switch to a variety of other music sellers). Tower never established a store here, despite rumors of imminent arrival that had local shop owners (remember them) worried in the 1980s and ’90s. I’m not sure what all the fuss is about; the last time I was in New York, I killed some time by browsing in the classical department at Tower, and didn’t find a single thing I wanted to buy. (I did, however, later emerge from the Metropolitan Opera giftshop with a plump bag of recorded goodies, and I’m not even an opera maniac.)
    Still, the debacle is interesting as a symbol of the collapse of the old order. David Hurwitz has penned a typically cranky editorial on the subject:

The final, ignominious demise of Tower Records, auctioned off in bankruptcy to a liquidator for about $146 million, couldn’t have come quickly enough. For years this dinosaur has acted as a break on the necessary restructuring of the retail sector, the musical equivalent of an acute intestinal blockage. The end was predictable, indeed expected for a decade or more, and the only thing keeping the ship afloat was the support of major labels desperate to justify their expensive and proprietary nationwide distribution networks (for popular music, primarily). No one, not Tower, not the labels, was making money; indeed, between Tower paying its bills in returned product, and labels routinely agreeing to payment terms that amounted basically to a barter or consignment arrangement, the only outfit profiting over the past several years has been UPS and other package delivery services.