A Eulogy For Tower Records
Courtesy of F2K mastermind and SOTC affiliate Maura K. Johnston: Chains of Fools, an aughts-spanning retrospective ode to those sad big box retailers that "shuffled off the turnpikes during this decade." Circuit City, Bennigan's (ha!), and Steve & Barry's all get send-offs but the gem is Johnston's farewell to Tower Records. It's an experience anyone who ever went can relate to: "Tower had been something of a social space for me, even though I rarely talked to people on the trips that my friends and I would take there; I would stalk the aisles in search of music I'd only read about, band names that were trapped in my memory being unlocked after sidelong glances at divider cards." After that comes the now-vanquished record store's signature smell of "molding plastic and record-collector folly." I remember it well. [The Awl]
Tower, no more. Photo via yanec's photostream.
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