Gloria Ross wrote:

>Since no one has commented on this in quite a while, I would like to add
>that Tower Records, having run out-of-business all the small specialty
>record stores in the US, now would have us select from less inventory than
>was previously available here in Dallas from one or two independently owned
>stores.  This is, unfortunately, also true in New York.  Some have managed
>to hold on, but stores like Discophile and Discount Records, now gone, and
>Record Hunter, which is not what it was, are few and far between.

I know of no independently run record stores in Dallas since 1990 at least
that have had anything to compare to Tower's selection, which I find to be
most excellent.  I was the manager of the "Classical" Sound Warehouse cum
Blockbuster Music from the early 90's until its demise in 1995.  This store
had the undisputable best selection anywhere in the Southwest.  I know, I
put it there myself.  We carried just about every selection from every
label I could put my hands on.  This store, however, was anything but
independent.  Borders here has a half-decent selection, but the stores
lack order and knowledgeable staff.  I also quite disagree that Tower has
run all the specialty stores out of business.  They only run 200 stores in
the US and concentrate on only the major cities.  The thing that ran the
specialty stores out were chains like musicland, Blockbuster, Record Town,
etc, that placed themselves on every street corner.  The customer that will
travel all the way across town to buy the current hits is rare.  In the old
days of few stores, the mom and pops were able to keep a broader inventory
because they were the only store in town and could make their bread and
butter off of the top 40.  Now that these discs are available on every
street corner, the indies can no longer keep up.  Tower Dallas has as good
a selection as I have seen here in years.  Further, I know through some
friends of mine that work there that they are nowhere near finished with
their inventory as yet.  It seems as if a computer glitch casued some
ordering problems that took several days to fix, and they had to hold up on
orders until it was corrected.  I also have it on good authority that Tower
Dallas ranked in the top 20 classical stores for sales in their first month
of business.  I think that in time, they will do quite well.

Having spent 10 years in the record biz, I am very critical of record
stores.  I give Tower Dallas an A+ and wish them every continued success.

Kevin Sutton