Post #261321 by martiki on Tue, Oct 17, 2006 4:28 PM

I loved Tower growing up- used to take long trips to get to the nearest one. Always had good singles and lots of UK imports, which pre-internet were hard to get elsewhere. I can certainly appreciate the argument about it crushing independent stores, but I always found the selection great, if not the staff.

Two interesting notes: About a year ago, I was at Berkeley's Mod Lang records, an independent record store that I loved- real import specialists and esoteric stuff from a lot of my favorite artists. I asked them to order an Import CD for me- not hard to get at all, an in-print, new release on a UK indie label. I could have got it from Amazon with no problem, but I thought I'd go local. They gave me the ususal record snob attitude when I ordered it, and never got it for me or called me back. Today, they're out of business. Indie record stores can bitch about the big guy, but if their only weapon is service and knowlege, then they have to try harder.

Last night, after reading this thread, I went down to the local Tower to pick through the bones. Everything was 15% off, and I got a couple of things. But there was another DVD that I was looking for, so I went over to the Best Buy, and I discovered that everything I'd bought at Tower was cheaper at Best Buy, even with the discount. Proof that there's always a bigger fish.