Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Tower Records – making a point


I was in Tower Records on Wicklow Street the other day. It’s my default spot to get new music or music related stuff. There’s always something way cooler about carrying a Tower bag than a HMV bag. Road Records and Freebird are great too, but they don’t have the same range of stuff that Tower have.

Apart from CDs, they have a great range of vinyl, books (music and otherwise) and DVDs, along with headphones, speakers and other cool stuff. The one at Easons on O’Connell Street is good too. Anyway back to my visit the other day. They are now selling apples for 5 cents. Good juicy red ones. When I asked them they said “Tesco are undercutting us with CDs, so we’re undercutting them.”

There is something distasteful about buying a CD in Tesco, along with your toilet roll, green peppers and teabags. I did it once (a Velvet Revolver CD) and won’t do it again. Although they are cheaper, the music just becomes a sort of product. Music matters. More so than groceries. Although it’s a kind of Canute-like gesture, holding back the inevitable, it’s also a dignified way of making a small point.

I have found many gems in there over the years. There’s also something very satisfying about just walking into the shop and buying an album, rather than ordering it online or downloading it. If we all just look for the cheapest avenue to get our music that only leads to one thing: music having no value put on it.

They now have a facebook page too:

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/pages/Dublin-Ireland/Tower-Dublin/121634337875857?ajaxpipe=1&__a=4

1 comment:

  1. Well I wonder do they still have the apples? Bet they got a good deal on them from the auld early riser, Bill Cullen. I concur with the above.

    ReplyDelete