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Tower Records was so wrapped up in selling physical goods (CDs and earlier, LPs) that they were totally blindsided by the rapid change in listener preferences.

by chiph 10y ago

Tower Records was so wrapped up in selling physical goods (CDs and earlier, LPs) that they were totally blindsided by the rapid change in listener preferences. They didn't react quickly enough, soon enough, as sales fell off a cliff thinking it a temporary correction instead of a fundamental change. So the lesson is that once a company has "made it" they should diversify so that they aren't dependent on a single income stream. You should totally watch the film, btw. I used to shop at the Watt Avenue store in Sacramento, and the breadth of titles they carried was amazing. Easily five times the product that a store like Sam Goody would carry, and in niches you'd never see anywhere else. If there were such a thing as Celtic Rap, Tower Records would have carried it.

Yhippa 10y ago
You had me curious so I looked it up. There is in fact at least one Celtic Rap group out there: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manau_(group) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manau_(group).
- chiph 10y ago
  Of course there had to be one. :)
xenadu02 10y ago
My brother in law was a buyer for Tower. They weren't blindsided, they knew it was coming. The record labels at first refused to license music to them for digital distribution, then later insisted on onerous terms. Tower missed out on digital because of the record labels. It took Steve Jobs' force of personality to knock sense into the labels.
- MaysonL 10y ago
  Steve Jobs' force of personality combined with the iPod and iTunes.
Anthony-G 10y ago
Interestingly, I recently browsed in the Dublin Tower Records store and the LPs now outnumber the CDs. Currently, they’re the largest specialist retailer in physical media (music, films and books) in Dublin. As I understand it, the Dublin franchise became independent of the Tower parent company some years past – or at least they advertised themselves as being “independent”. http://www.towerrecords.ie/aboutus.asp http://www.towerrecords.ie/aboutus.asp

by chiph 10y ago

Yhippa 10y ago

You had me curious so I looked it up. There is in fact at least one Celtic Rap group out there: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manau_(group) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manau_(group).

chiph 10y ago
Of course there had to be one. :)

xenadu02 10y ago

My brother in law was a buyer for Tower. They weren't blindsided, they knew it was coming. The record labels at first refused to license music to them for digital distribution, then later insisted on onerous terms. Tower missed out on digital because of the record labels. It took Steve Jobs' force of personality to knock sense into the labels.

MaysonL 10y ago
Steve Jobs' force of personality combined with the iPod and iTunes.

Anthony-G 10y ago

Interestingly, I recently browsed in the Dublin Tower Records store and the LPs now outnumber the CDs. Currently, they’re the largest specialist retailer in physical media (music, films and books) in Dublin. As I understand it, the Dublin franchise became independent of the Tower parent company some years past – or at least they advertised themselves as being “independent”. http://www.towerrecords.ie/aboutus.asp http://www.towerrecords.ie/aboutus.asp