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Tower Records is a retail music chain based in West Sacramento, California. Tower was founded in 1960 by Russ Solomon in Sacramento, California. The store was named after his father's drugstore (which shared a building with the Tower Theater, hence the name), where he first started selling records. Seven years later, Tower Records expanded to San Francisco, opening a store in what was originally existed as a grocery store at Bay and Columbus streets. The chain eventually expanded internationally and now includes stores in Hong Kong, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Republic of Ireland, Israel, Colombia, Ecuador and Mexico. The store also established Tower Records stores in Japan, but those stores split off from main chain and are now independent. Arguably the most famous Tower Records outlet is the one located on the north side of Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles. In addition to CDs and cassette tapes (few carry vinyl LPs anymore), stores also sell DVDs, PSP movies, video games, accessories, toys and electronic gadgets like mp3 players, while a few Tower Records stores sell books as well, such as the stores in Brea, California and Sacramento. All these product lines and more are also available at Tower.com, which got its start in 1995 as one of the first music retailers to set up shop on the Internet. In New York City, twin Tower Records stores straddle lower Broadway - one an annex that still sells vinyl records, and the other selling modern items (CDs, DVDs, etc.). The store in Greenwich Village was famous in the 1980's for selling albums of European New Wave bands not yet popular in the U.S., and was a noted hangout for teenagers from throught the metropolitan area.
In June 2006 Tower Records launched it's own digital download store www.tower.com/digital
While under bankruptcy, Tower Records exited Argentina, Canada (where it had two Toronto stores), and the United Kingdom (including the famed 1 Piccadilly Circus store) markets.
Tower Records In the United Kingdom
Originally Tower Records was just a London based concern, with the store at 1 Piccadilly Circus being joined by a couple of smaller outlets (for example Kensington High Street). However by the start of the 1990s the chain had grew to encompass a number of other stores, with large entertainment stores also selling movies, books, magazines and games in Birmingham and Glasgow, as well as a number of smaller stores that had been purchased from rival American retailer Sam Goody when it had left the UK marketplace (for example of this express format - Weston-Super-Mare).
However with tough trading conditions in the UK market, as well as the company's trouble in the States, the firm followed Sam Goody in retreating from the UK market. The London stores in Piccadilly and Kensington were sold to Virgin Group, who for a while traded under the Tower brand at the former site until the store could be fully refurbished, whilst the other stores were closed.
Tower Records (U.S. record label)
Tower Records was also the name of a subsidiary label of Capitol Records during the 1960s. The imprint's best-known artists, perhaps, were Freddie and the Dreamers, short-lived stars during the British Invasion of 1964-1966; U.S. garage band legends the Standells and the Chocolate Watch Band; and, Pink Floyd, whose first three albums and first singles were issued on Tower in the U.S. before Capitol shifted them to another subsidiary, Harvest Records, beginning in 1970.
Tower Records also released the successful soundtracks to the films Riot on Sunset Strip (some of whose music was performed by the Standells) and Wild in the Streets, the latter producing the Top 20 hit "Shape of Things to Come" by Max Frost and the Troopers, the fictitious rock group around which the film centered.
Capitol discontinued the label some time during the early 1970s.
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Landmarks in Los Angeles | Music retailers | Retailers of the United Kingdom | British bookshops | Companies based in the Central Valley
"Tower Records"