Tower Records-Video-Books

In seventh or eighth grade, my friend and I stood in line for hours and hours to see Bjork. When we finally got up there, I took a picture — very excited as any adolescent would be seeing her favorite musician.
I developed the roll and it was the only photo that didn’t come out.
Blast you stupid point n shoot!!!
Well anyways, this place and I shared a moment that day and I’m sorry to see it (and the whole chain) go. *tear*

So this place is closing, and I wanted to get some sweet deals. And I didn’t really seem that many great deals. Everything in the store is 30% off which is pretty sweet. And most things are over priced making the 30% off a tad bit less sweet. But if you look around you can find deals. Like most of their video games are standard retail prices but with 30% off, so that’s sort of sweet. But they didn’t really have any good 360 games left. And all of their old shelves are for sale and at decent prices.

I love the magazine selection here. Sometimes I go and just flip through different mags for hours at a time. They validate for the parking lot next door, so it’s not a bad place to take a drive to when you’re bored. However, if you’re going to buy a CD from a giant chain, you might as well do it at Amazon and get it cheaper.

I used to love this store when I was thirteen and had not yet moved to the city. Then I discovered so many other stores with better selection and better prices. The only good thing about Tower is their magazine selection.

This hulking complex along Clark and Belden features Tower Records (do they actually sell records anymore?) and a few other shops.

When Tower took over the former Rose Records space on South Wabash, it retained most of its amazing inventory, particularly in international music and reggae, for several years. The Jazz section is still strong, but all other inventory has been drastically reduced to make more room for DVDs. So now the Tower on Clark has the edge. Like Virgin, however, Tower is my last resort when I can’t find something anywhere else. Why? Because the prices SUCK.
Their average prices are so high now it’s ridiculous. Usually if I can’t find a CD at Reckless, Dusty Groove, Hard Boiled, Evil Clown, Laurie’s Planet of Sound or Jazz Record Mart, I’ll get it online at Djangos, CD Wow, IdealCopy, Alldirect or Deepdiscount. Only when I’m feeling impatient and am willing to pay several extra dollars for the instant gratification will I cave in to Tower.
That said, I was recently surprised by a couple good finds in the import section. I was really impressed by the ongoing display at the end of the import row, where Paul Kennedy, the Imports Coordinator, writes blurbs about great bands like The Associates, Section 25, Dome (guys from Wire), Scriti Politti, Ultravox, Mark Stewart, Gang of Four and punk poet John Cooper Clarke. They get some of the UK releases about a week or so after their release — such as Editors, Dogs, The Rakes, The Departure and Shortwave Set. Some of the albums seem to be permantly on sale for five dollars under the normal price. They even imported and displayed Simon Reynolds’ Rip It Up And Start Again: Postpunk 1978 – 1984, which won’t be available in the U.S. until 2006. So for the import section alone, I’ll up the rating from two to three stars.

My favorite music store ever!!! they have an unbelievable selection of so many different music genres. You can find imports that you wouldnt find anywhere else. I love their international section and all of their ‘tower recommends’ cds… Great place that you can spend hours listening and looking for music!