Everything Must Go: The Final Eulogies For Tower Records

Tower Records has been shuttering its stores, one by one, over the course of the past week; the final 10 U.S. stores in the chain will close for good today, bringing an end to the chain’s presence in this country. Below are a few postmortems that have appeared in newspapers around the country.

“The final sale came at 5:34 p.m., capping an emotional day. Well-wishers and bargain hunters scoured the dwindling racks for CDs that at day’s end sold for 50 cents. Some muttered there was little worth buying; others just soaked up atmosphere. One left a box of cookies with a thank-you note scribbled on the price sticker.” [Sacramento Bee]
“Amid the holiday rush, Tower Records’ Center City store went out of business yesterday, two months after the once-revered chain was acquired for liquidation. In the final days the shelves were half-empty, the selections grim – obscure metal bands such as Rorschach Test and Backlash. ‘It’s sad, because I used to buy all my music here,’ said Andy Fortson, 21, of Mount Airy. ‘But they just can’t compete with all the downloading and competition from stores like Best Buy. It seems like it’s pretty much impossible to have a record store that only sells music.’ ” [Philadelphia Inquirer]
- “He remembers the woman who would fly in from California to ask what was new and good; the deejay from Spain who would drop a grand or two on jazz records that Jones recommended. ‘He spent so much, we gave him a discount,’ Jones said. ‘But that’s how it was here. People trusted us.’” [NY Daily News]

Earlier: Readers share their last-days-of-Tower deals