[Live Animals] RIP: Tower Records

As humans, I think we're trained from day one to fill the communication void between each other by spending money on stuff. Stuff gets us talking: Alcohol, sports, art, books, music.

As sad as it is to see Tower Records go out of business, Shannon and I made out like bandits - coming home with a pile of CDs at 50-70% off normal sticker price. It's the first time in a very very long time that I have gone on a music purchasing binge, and it likely marks the occasion of the last time I will shop at a big box music store. Specialty stores like Generation and Kim's will always exist because of the strong elitist niche they command, but thanks to Amazon, places like Tower and Sam Goody are a dying breed.

And good riddance, too. Most CD prices were between $15.99 and $17.99, with singles between $3.99 and $7.99. Imports were coming in at $33.99. And the computerized ordering system that long since replaced Human Purchasers was putting Tower in a huge hole of debt. The video manager was telling us that he had 20,000 pieces of overstock, most of it copies of the same merchandise.

Shannon worked at Tower for a little bit, and explained the computerized purchasing system to me. All CDs and Videos were given a rating 1 through 10. A rating of "1" would be the most popular stuff, your Jay-Zs and Madonnas. This stuff would get ordered in absolutely insane quantities, left to sit on the shelves or in the storeroom for months because most people who would buy it usually buy it the day it comes out.

A rating of "10" would be the most obscure, like boxed sets from Ant-Zen, reissues of old Can albums. You know, the kind of stuff one goes to a record store to find because they can't pick it up when they are at Target or Wal-Mart. The kind of items that human purchasers would make sure a couple of copies were in stock to keep the store fresh and unique. When the computerized system was put into place, items rated 9 and 10 were getting thrown away. Ok, returned to the labels. But still. It was like throwing them away.

When this happened, Tower essentially began to throw away precisely what would have kept it alive in the face of online purchases and the Discount Giants. Smaller stores have learned this lesson and have thus far been able to stay open. So good riddance to this awful formula, but a part of me will always miss the randomness of browsing the "C"s in Rock/Pop/Soul, finding a soundtrack scored by Nick Cave sitting right next to Cindarella, or finding an O'Jays disc misplaced under Merzbow.