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

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

Retailers like Best Buy and Walmart began using CDs as "loss leaders," selling them below cost to lure customers into stores, making Tower’s premium prices look unsustainable.

The collapse of Tower Records was not caused by a single factor, but a "perfect storm" of three major forces: All Things Must Pass The Rise and Fall of Tower...

The company’s aggressive expansion left it with no financial cushion when sales began to dip.

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 The arrival of Napster in 1999 and the

By 2006, Tower Records filed for liquidation. The vibrant, chaotic aisles were emptied, and the iconic yellow-and-red signs were taken down. The Legacy

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

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.