Bye Bye Tower Records
As published in The Chicago Reader last week, Tower Records will soon be filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection. Peter Margasak says this leaves Chicago with only one real deep-catalog record chain store, that being Virgin. I haven’t been to Tower in years so this won’t affect me at all. Independents with new and used selections, online record stores and sites like iTunes and eMusic work just fine for me.
Will the closing of Tower Records affect your buying habits? Where are the best places to buy new and used music in Chicago?
A couple places in the south side always have good selections of r&b/funk/blues/jazz
Beverly Records
Mr. Peabody Records
Both on S Western.
Margasek says he doesn’t relish shopping at Virgin, but…what’s the difference? I’ll certainly miss the in-stores, but in purely economic terms, I’ve never saw that Tower gave a better value to the consumer.
Not a shocker in the least … I’ve always found them way overpriced and their stores leave much to be desired in the aesthetics department.
Bummer. One of my favorite traditions is an annual visit to Tower with my dad and sister to blow the gift cerificates we give each other each Christmas.
It’s usually a fun 2-3 hour stroll amongst the aisles and aisles of music, culminating in a mega listening session that spans from my Dad’s tastes (opera/classical) to my sister’s music (heavy shit) to mine (rap/hip hop/world).
While I’m sure there are “cooler” record stores, I for one will miss Tower.
I have not been to Towers for a long time too. I get my music and movies from Djangos-2nd Hand Tunes; many of the employees are musicians themselves, so you can get a very good advice from that store.
I will also miss the passing of Tower Records for it is the only in-store left where I live. The aesthetics of the store here is pretty cool to. So will all of The Towers be gone. Tower Records,Books and Video? They were all individual stores placed next to one another. It was like Towerland. Lots of memories. What a cold experience it will be to only be able to get music online.