Tower of Song

My friend Patrick has posted an eloquent eulogy for Tower Records over at his site.

Tower was done in by many factors — the rise of the big-box retailer, Internet retailing — but, in my opinion, their basic problem was that the discs were simply too expensive. $18.98 for a CD is, let’s face it, a lot of money, particularly when you can get the biggest sellers at Best Buy or Walmart (or, indeed, the iTunes Store) for $9.99. You can get away with charging twice as much as your competitors when you’re selling a product that’s worth twice as much as your competitors; just ask the Mandarin Oriental. Unfortunately, that Nickleback CD does not magically become worth twice as much just because it’s sitting in a rack in a Tower Records instead of a rack at Circuit City.

It’s true that the Internet is the world’s largest music store, with an inventory that dwarfs what any physical location can provide. But there’s still the wonderful feeling of just wandering through a place stuffed with rarities and obscurities (some deservedly so; others less so), the sense of incipient serendipity; the idea that right around the corner will be music that will blow your mind; you just have to find it. After all, sometimes you don’t know that you’re looking for something until you find it.