MovieChat Forums > All Things Must Pass: The Rise and Fall of Tower Records (2015) Discussion > No Sympathy

No Sympathy

posted 8 years ago by innuendo-4
7 replies | jump to latest

I had little or no sympathy for most of the people who were featured in this documentary.

1) They had a cushy job for 30+ years
2) They progressed through the ranks with little or no effort, basically if you were there from the beginning or knew the right person you were able to ride the crest of a wave
3) Millions of hard working people are struggling to make ends meet in much tougher professions throughout the world
4) The company fell apart as a result of horrible mismanagement

I found it particularly amusing when the stoner guy (i forget his name but he was the chap who broke into his neighbours apt and used his bath) got all teary eyed and resentful at how things had panned out. You buddy hit the jackpot for 20+ years!

[–] rzaxlash 8 years ago

I kind of felt the same. I miss these types of record stores too, but even by 1995,96, my father would always take us to department stores or Nobody Beats the Wiz...Cd's there were so much cheaper than at places like Tower.

[–] mpboylanjr-54038 8 years ago

I think the point was to give many people the story of this huge empire and movement of music throughout Towers 30 years of buisness. It certainly wasn't made to make you feel bad for the people who lost their jobs. The interviews with all the people involved in no way asked for sympathy . It was all a remembrance of how great a place it was to work, and if you were around from the beginning or towards the end , that it was a great place to listen and get your music before Napster and the internet took over. I remember going into the stores in the 90s and buying my music from them when I was a kid.
This whole doc. was to pass on the legend and show the younger generations of how music used to be, and how you got it, and the people that built up this huge record empire from a little drug store in California.
I thought it was great, and if you got out of it that it was for sympathy of the people and company going bankrupt than I really believe you missed the point of the film all together. Most of those people left the company with plenty of money and Russ is still a millionaire. The point of the whole documentary was to show you the growth of the company and movement of music throughout the decades that touched people in different ways. It was sad to see it end, but as the name states, All Things Must Pass. I thought it was very well done.

THERES NO ROOM IN MY CIRCUS TENT FOR YOU !!!!

[–] rocklyn80 8 years ago

at leat you got the purpose of the film..... how it started from a small back room bin to international empire, and how being at the right spot at the right time was how all this came to be.
Boy do I miss those days browsing record bins.... sad to see them go

[–] 8 years ago

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[–] traxrule 8 years ago

Many Tower stores WERE poorly run- one store I was close to quite often didn't have the new releases out on the shelves on their release date, they were either still on the cart or in the back room. I would have fired the people responsible for that. Many employees in general seemed to be slackers who really didn't care about customers getting what they wanted, and the last few years Tower's prices weren't anything to write home about either. I wish they could've solved those issues before it was too late.

(I worked at Tower's main office mainly doing customer service for their website orders, and remember an email from someone the week the Going out of Business sales started- they shared a story of how they had rushed to a store at about 11:50 at night when closing time was midnight, to grab something specific, but the employees there had already decided to close early thus losing the sale and that customer's confidence in the stores altogether.)

[–] kaskait 8 years ago

I worked at a major location and I agree, the stores were run by cliques who made nice with the boss. So on and so forth up the chain.

But I have to say, none of the employees I worked with mistreated the customers that I knew about. We all pretty much wanted everyone to find what they were looking for.

As far as closing the store early, that NEVER happened in our location. In fact we all would end up staying an extra 30 to 45 minutes on the floor to let the last customers shop and pay for their picks after the doors closed.

[–] HowYaLikeDemApplesWill 7 years ago

The joke when they started closing the Tower stores was: now where are the people with the tattoos on their necks going to work, because there aren't enough Togo's sandwich shops to employ them all.

Whose idea was it for the word "Lisp" to have an "S" in it?