Russell Solomon's Tower Records: A Drugstore Corner to Nine Floors in Tokyo

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Tower Records began in 1941 when teenager Russell Solomon sold used records in a corner of his father's Sacramento pharmacy, Tower Drugs, which shared a building with the Tower Theater. He opened his first standalone store on Watt Avenue in 1960, took over a former San Francisco grocery store in 1967 and opened the Sunset Strip store in West Hollywood in 1971, with staff acting as the general contractors. Solomon let local managers curate their own stock: the Upper West Side store near Lincoln Center served theater and classical buyers, and the Nashville store, in an old Packard dealership near Music Row, drew country stars. Monday night parties counted down to midnight Tuesday releases, and the free Pulse magazine launched in 1983.

Stores followed in the United Kingdom, Argentina, Israel, Taiwan, Singapore and Japan, starting in Sapporo in 1980, where the Shibuya store grew to nine floors. In October 2002 the Japanese branch's management bought it out, cutting it loose from the U.S. company. Debt-fueled expansion left the American business with an estimated $80 to $100 million in debt by early 2004, and in 2002 Tower, along with other retailers and labels, settled CD price-fixing lawsuits with 41 states built around minimum advertised pricing rules, paying a $3 million fine. Chapter 11 filings came in 2004 and August 2006, a liquidation firm won the assets in October 2006, and the last U.S. stores closed that December.

• In 1976 Solomon added adjacent spaces selling books, posters and even house plants.
• Investigators found consumers were overcharged nearly half a billion dollars on CDs between 1995 and 2000, up to $5 per album.
• Best Buy and Target sold CDs at a loss to pull shoppers toward televisions and appliances.
• The Boston flagship at Newbury Street and Mass Ave became a Best Buy and later a TJ Maxx.
• The brand returned online in 2020 and opened Tower Labs, an artist event space in Brooklyn, in 2022.