Tower Records Reopens After 14 Years
The legendary music chain once served clients like Prince and Dave Grohl.
Music industry icon Tower Records has made its return, adapting to the times and reopening as an online music store.
The retailer’s new website sells a wide selection of music in the form of vinyl LPs, CDs and cassette tapes, plus a variety of Tower Records merchandise. This also marks the return of its famed Pulse! magazine, which mainly includes album reviews and artist interviews. Reports state that the company was meant to relaunch during this year’s South by Southwest event and even planned to host several pop-up shops, but the COVID-19 pandemic is putting those plans on hold.
Danny Zeijdel, the Tower Records CEO who replaced founder Russ Solomon, shared that the music chain’s return “has been met with tremendous success, feedback. A lot of people are so happy taking pictures of when they receive an order from Tower Records, posting it on Instagram.”
Tower Records was founded by the late Solomon in 1960, and at its peak earned $1.1 billion USD in revenue from 173 stores in and out of the United States. It became one of the most famous music chains thanks to its huge inventory and famous clients such as Prince, Bruce Springsteen, Elton John and Dave Grohl. The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy twice and it turned into a Chapter 7 liquidation, eventually closing down all Tower Records locations in the U.S. in 2006. The music chain’s history was the main subject of the 2015 documentary All Things Must Pass, narrated by Solomon who died three years after the film’s release.
Check out what’s on sale over at the new Tower Records website.
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