This Washington Post story is yet another offer of how heartless capitalism is; in this case, the tale of woe is that Tower Records is shutting down. It's breaking my heart.
All of it is going, of course -- not just Tower, but the record store culture that Tower embodied. Anything that can be squeezed down to ones and zeros and moved around at the speed of electrons doesn't have to be stacked in plastic cases, shoved into bins and splayed over aisles under fluorescent lights anymore. All of it's going online.And isn't that better? Doesn't the digital universe give anyone with a computer and a credit card wider and speedier access to more music than any Tower could ever stock? Isn't it better when you never have to find a parking space or deal with one of those haughty, green-haired clerks who always gave your Beach Boys and show-tune selections a look that said, "Wow, you are such a geezer"?
No, it isn't. Not exactly.
There will never be the same sense of wonder on iTunes, the same joy of discovery and intoxicating power of musical abundance that hit you every time you walked into even the dinkiest Tower or any comparable record store. There it lay before you -- unheard! unseen! unfondled! -- potential treasures beckoning from row upon row of wooden bins.
Clicking a mouse cannot replace the singular ritual act of pawing through those big bins to find . . . well, you never knew what. And that was the point. Skilled veterans could flip through dozens of records -- "records"? Ha-ha, Grandpa! -- with knowing hands and studious concentration while the rest of us dawdled over a particularly alluring piece of cover art. Working your way down the alphabet (Abba, the Beatles, the Cure, etc.) could take the better part of an afternoon.
Somebody kill me before I have to read stuff like this again. "Sense of wonder?" "Finding?" How about someone actually hearing the Benny Goodman Sextet for the first time? That means Lionel Hampton, Gene Krupa, Goodman himself, and Charlie Christian -- the first master of the electric guitar -- actually being heard. You can do that for ninety-nine cents at your iTunes account. The sense of wonder belongs with the music, not with the bin or whatever other source brought the music to you. As Paul Farhi writes, "It's reasonable to ask whether Tower could have adapted. As a friend put it, Tower had the brand-name cred to be what iTunes is, if only Tower hadn't clung to bricks and mortar and $17.99 CDs."
Exactly.
Tower didn't adapt, and, partly because it didn't, you couldn't choose to hear Charlie Christian without plunking down damn near twenty bucks for the privilege. At Tower (and Peaches, and any other record store) you had to buy an entire album, tape, or CD in order to hear it. First genius of the electric guitar? Charlie Christian certainly was that, but what if you didn't like the music? Tough. You're out twenty bucks. But you can check out "Air Mail Special" on iTunes and decide whether or not you'll want more.
The internet's not perfect and neither is iTunes. But who needs $17.99 CDs? I don't. I don't need some teenaged clerk ignoring me while she's on her cell phone, then, when she deigns to move to the cash register, asking me for my phone number or zip code, or telling me to fill out a card for three "free" magazines. I don't need to show my driver's license or pay a tax to a particular state for the privilege of buying something.
I never hated Tower, or Peaches, or Sam Goody, or Hot Wax. I don't particularly hate YFE. I take no real satisfaction in seeing such businesses disappear. But the market is speaking about that business model, and has been speaking, and Tower hasn't been listening. Comments about the "magic" of The Way It Used to Be are misdirected. There was magic in seeing all those album covers on the walls, yes. And in finding stuff and getting it. But the point of those aisles and bins and walls was the music, and the music is provided quite well online, thank you.
So Tower Records has fallen, and I'm not a bit sad about it. But I'm not rejoicing over it, either. I may save that for when Blockbuster chokes and dies.