Tower Records is an international retail franchise and online music store[1] that was formerly based in Sacramento, California, United States.

On November 13, 2020, Tower Records announced that it had returned as an online retailer with plans to open future physical locations.

The first stand-alone Tower Records store was located at 2514 Watt Ave in the Arden Arcade area of Sacramento.

Arguably the most famous Tower Records outlet was the purpose-built building that company staff general-contracted, with many personally contributing their labor, which opened in 1971 on the northwest corner of Sunset Boulevard and Horn Avenue in West Hollywood.

[6][7] In New York City, Tower Records operated a suite of stores on and near lower Broadway in Greenwich Village.

[citation needed] Their location on the Upper West Side, near Lincoln Center on 66th Street and Broadway, was a magnet for those working in the field of musical theatre.

[citation needed] There was also a location in the basement of Trump Tower, and a small clearance annex on 86th Street on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.

The location was famous for their late-night Monday events that culminated at midnight on Tuesday when staff started ringing up sales of new releases.

[citation needed] In addition to compact discs and cassette tapes, the stores sold DVDs, electronic gadgets like mp3 players, video games, accessories, and toys, and a few Tower Records locations sold books as well, such as those in Fremont, Brea, Mountain View, and Sacramento, California, as well as stores in Austin, Boston, Massachusetts, Nashville, New York City, Portland, Oregon, and Seattle and Bellevue, Washington.

In 1983, the company began publishing a music magazine, Pulse!, which contained record reviews, interviews, and advertising.

Factors cited were the heavy debt incurred during its aggressive expansion in the 1990s, growing competition from mass discounters and Internet piracy.

On the other hand, it wasn't that long ago that those megastore chains drove a lot of neighborhood record stores out of business.

[14] On August 20, 2006, Tower Records filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy for the second time, in order to facilitate a purchase of the company prior to the holiday shopping season.

[15][16] On October 6, 2006, Great American Group won an auction of the company's assets and commenced liquidation proceedings the following day.

The store (which occupied the first five stories) featured gold stars of Boston artists (including Gang Starr, New Kids on the Block, and Yo-Yo Ma) embedded in the front landing.

Tower Labs is a creative space, as the brand continues to explore the potential reopening of a flagship retail location.

[29] Tower Records operated nine stores in Argentina in Buenos Aires, Pilar, San Isidro, Puerto Madryn, Córdoba, and La Plata.

[30] Tower Records operated in Canada in the mid-1990s with a flagship store at the Toronto Eaton Centre at the corner of Queen and Yonge which opened in December 1995 and closed in 2001.

The Founding Director was Joel Abramson, who had previously managed Tower's flagship Sunset Strip location in Los Angeles.

The bankruptcy of Tower Records in the U.S. in 2006 did not affect TRJ because it had been completely independent (as of 2015, NTT DoCoMo and Seven & I Holdings are the main stakeholders).

In 2014, Tower Records launched the music review website Mikiki, which also posts content from the previously mentioned magazines.

[40] The first Tower Records store in Mexico opened in the mid-1990s in the Zona Rosa area featuring 3 floors and a live DJ.

There were Tower Records stores in Mexico City (Gran Sur, Altavista and Mundo E), and Monterrey (Paseo San Pedro).

[46] In the 2000s as business declined due to piracy and the downloading revolution, the stores were progressively closed and the remaining ones were eventually sold to another dealer.

The 2015 documentary All Things Must Pass: The Rise and Fall of Tower Records by filmmaker Colin Hanks chronicles the rise and fall of Tower Records, using archival footage and exclusive interviews with former staff, especially Russell Solomon and former COO Stan Goman, as well as celebrity customers Bruce Springsteen, Elton John and Dave Grohl.

[48] Another documentary called Art Gods (2013) is an oral history of the development of an influential in-store display design ethic at Tower, originating from the Berkeley location.