When I reported on Tower Records problems and frozen distribution deals two weeks ago, I wasn't very optimistic. A former Tower employee who commented on this blog wrote, "I recently left Tower after many years of gainful employment. One of your readers said, 'Tower always finds ways to survive'. This may be true, however, this time seems different."Different indeed. Tower Records has now filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and has entered into an 85 million dollar debtor-in-possession finance package to hold them steady until a buyer for the business (or parts there of) can be courted. Tower reps say they're hopeful that the deal can be completed between now and October.
No doubt, the usual chorus of digital music naysayers will blame piracy and iTunes for the demise of Tower but, are those really the core issues? Granted, I've not been in many Tower stores in quite some time but, the Nashville location has always been near and dear to my heart. The last time I was there, the store was in terrible condition and just felt, well, broken. It was full of T-shirts, boxed toys (Family Guy and Simpsons collectibles) and the selection was poor to say the least. Coupled with lackluster prices compared to other retailers and, I think we've seen the recipe for death in the retail record business.
More info on Tower's bankruptcy.
1. I have a feeling that walmart, amazon.com and other online merchants are probably more responsible for the death of Tower than digital downloads or piracy.
Unless you positively had to have the cd right NOW, you could save a ton of money by mail ordering it.
Tower/NRM/SamGoody were paying top dollar for retail space and that prevented them from being able to deal on price. And god knows they couldn't deal on service, there is no service in the music industry.
iTunes was just the final nail.
Posted at 1:34PM on Aug 22nd 2006 by mikedt