All Things Must Pass The Rise And Fall Of Tower... Apr 2026

The arrival of Napster in 1999 and the subsequent rise of the iTunes Store fundamentally decoupled the song from the physical disc.

Founded by Russ Solomon in 1960 in the back of his father’s drugstore in Sacramento, Tower Records revolutionized how people bought music. Solomon’s philosophy was simple but radical: stay open late, stock everything, and hire people who lived and breathed music. All Things Must Pass The Rise and Fall of Tower...

At its height, Tower was a billion-dollar global empire with locations from Tokyo to London. However, this massive expansion carried the seeds of its downfall. To fund this growth, the company took on enormous debt. The arrival of Napster in 1999 and the

The "Fall" of Tower Records marked the end of the "record store clerk" era—the loss of a physical space where experts and fans collided. While the brand lives on today as an online entity and through its legendary Japanese franchises (which survived due to different market dynamics), the original Tower remains a symbol of a lost era of tactile discovery. At its height, Tower was a billion-dollar global

By the 1970s and 80s, the Tower on Sunset Strip became the epicenter of the industry. It wasn't just a store; it was a clubhouse. It was where Elton John would show up at opening to buy stacks of vinyl and where aspiring musicians worked the registers. Tower succeeded because it felt authentic. It prioritized "cool" over corporate rigidity, allowing individual store managers to curate their own stock, which created a sense of discovery that an algorithm can't replicate. The Peak and the Blind Spot

Ultimately, All Things Must Pass reminds us that while the medium of music changes, the human desire for a "tribe" remains. Tower didn't just sell plastic discs; it sold a sense of belonging.

In the mid-90s, the industry was booming thanks to the CD—a high-margin product that forced consumers to rebuy their entire libraries. This windfall created a sense of invincibility. Tower’s leadership largely ignored the early warning signs of the digital revolution, dismissing the internet as a niche hobby rather than a fundamental shift in how humans consume media. The Fall: A Perfect Storm