page_title: Tower Records
section_title: Inception, expansion, and description
hierarchical_section_title: Tower Records / History / Inception, expansion, and description
caption_attribution_description: Tower Records Sunset, 8801 West Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, California. The metallic building behind Tower (8833 Sunset) houses a number of IAC/InterActiveCorp subsidiaries including Citysearch, Evite, and Gifts.com. This location was closed in December 2006. Photograph by Mike Dillon, May 10, 2006.
context_page_description: Tower Records is an international retail music franchise and online music store that was formerly based in Sacramento, California, United States. From 1960 until 2006, Tower operated retail stores in the United States, which closed when Tower Records filed for bankruptcy and liquidation. Tower.com was purchased by a separate entity and was not affected by the retail store closings.
context_section_description: In 1960, Russell Solomon opened the first Tower Records store on Broadway, in Sacramento, California. He named it for his father's drugstore, which shared a building and name with the Tower Theater, where Solomon first started selling records. The first stand-alone Tower Records store was located at 2514 Watt Ave in Arden Arcade, a suburb of Sacramento, California. By 1976, Solomon had opened Tower Books, Posters, and Plants at 1600 Broadway, next door to another Sacramento Tower Records location. In 1995, Tower.com opened, making the enterprise one of the first retailers to move online.
  In addition to compact discs and cassette tapes, the stores sold DVDs, electronic gadgets like mp3 players, video games, accessories, and toys, and a few Tower Records locations sold books as well, such as those in Brea, Mountain View, and Sacramento, California, as well as stores in Austin, Boston, Massachusetts, Nashville, New York City, Portland, Oregon, and Seattle.
  Seven years after its founding, Tower Records expanded to San Francisco, opening a store in what was originally a grocery store at Bay Street and Columbus Avenue. In 1979, Tower Records in Japan started its business as the Japan Branch of MTS Incorporated. The following year, Sapporo Store, the first in Japan opened. The chain eventually expanded internationally to include stores in Japan, United Kingdom, Canada, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, Ireland, Israel, United Arab Emirates, Mexico, Colombia, Ecuador, and Argentina. The Tower Records stores in Japan split off from the main chain and are now independent. Arguably the most famous Tower Records outlet was the purpose built building that company staff general-contracted, with many personally contributing their labor, which opened in 1971 on the north west corner of Sunset Boulevard and Horn Avenue in West Hollywood.
  In New York City, Tower Records operated a suite of stores on and near lower Broadway in the East Village. The main store was located at the southeast corner of East 4th Street and Broadway. The Tower Records Annex was in the same building, located at the southwest corner of East 4th and Lafayette Street. The third store, Tower Video, was located on the southeast corner of East 4th and Lafayette Street, and specialized in video and the second floor of this location also sold books. Their location on the Upper West Side, near Lincoln Center on 66th Street and Broadway, was a magnet for those working in the field of musical theatre.
  The Nashville location on West End Avenue (across from Vanderbilt University) was in a former Packard dealership. The old showroom floor in front was devoted to CDs, cassettes and vinyl. The area in the back housed videocassette sales and rentals, PC and console games and music paraphernalia. The strip mall next door contained a separate Tower Books. The location was famous for their late-night Monday events that culminated at midnight on Tuesday when staff started ringing up sales of new releases. Because of the store's proximity to Music Row, country music stars could occasionally be seen performing or shopping there.
  As part of a 2002 settlement with 41 states over CD price fixing Tower Records, along with retailers Musicland and Trans World Entertainment, agreed to pay a $3 million fine. It is estimated that between 1995 and 2000 customers were overcharged by nearly $500 million and up to $5 per album.
  In 2005, the company began using "scan and listen" stations in its stores. These stations allowed customers to listen to audio samples from CDs and to search for particular songs, albums and artists. This model of listening station is still used at the Arizona-based chain Zia Records.
  In 2006, the company introduced the Tower Insider program. The program was free of charge and allowed a customer to receive a membership card which could be scanned with each purchase, allowing the customer to receive coupons and notification of special deals via e-mail.
caption: Tower Records on the Sunset Strip
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