It's gone because....
You know why.
shareI used to work there many years ago, yeah, I know and it was no surprise.
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MovieChat Forums > All Things Must Pass: The Rise and Fall of Tower Records (2015) Discussion > It's gone because....
I didn't work there, so I don't know why. Having watched the doc, I would say that one can't run a company like a family-owned Mom & Pop shop when it expands internationally and becomes a billion-dollar business. Because that's what it seemed like happened. Fresh eyes and more experienced people from outside their specific business (music) may have helped them adjust and correct when the digital age came.
shareCDs there were just too damn expensive.
shareThis is true, and despite all the assurances that CD would go down on price, they never did. How long did the industry think music fans would put up with this? Forever, it appears.
shareThe CD was a record companies dream come true. Tell people its sonically better. Tell'em its indestructible. Then you can RESELL all the music you've ever sold before at a higher price. Now that's a dream product. Box sets, special editions, limited editions, it goes on and on.
Took the general music buying public years to catch on to the scam, but when they did. The Fury was all penetrating; record shops, big and small. Woolworths, HMV.
In some ways I can see the younger generations reluctance to play that game. So they made up their own from Napster to eDonkey to Kazaa. Then the genie was out of the box and once out we all know [RECORD EXECs TAKE NOTE] you cannot put it back in, no way, no how.
CDs indeed were a record company's dream, but to a lesser extent, they were also a music collector's dream because they allowed the listener acquire music in a more convenient and accessible format than vinyl. Had the price been more in line than the production costs, I think the format could have lasted longer. Is digital even a format now, or is it a workaround for the lack of a format?
The record industry was indeed due for a much-needed correction – make that overhaul – but as always, I wonder if musicians have been pushed aside with the shift to digital formats. Of course, they certainly were pushed aside before as the industry manipulated the market.
David Geffen nailed it best.....
"they could have made it (sold them) cheaper - they could have, but they didn't"
Thanks what kind the Record Shop business...
Great movie all the same... very ejoyable
Sad but true. I kept waiting for it to happen, but it never did. That's a shame, because CDs were a lot cheaper to manufacture than vinyl.
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We got our first CD player in 1985, when relatively few people had them. I immediately switched to CDs from cassettes, and the general rumors at the time were that prices WOULD go down as soon as the startup costs of manufacturing had been covered. While some older titles had their prices lowered, the price of new releases eventually went UP, starting with Garth Brooks' album "The Chase" which was priced a couple dollars more than usual. Within a couple years this soon became the new normal price for new releases, and even some popular older titles had their list prices raised!
I used to buy an obscene amount of CDs every month, but I lost most of my enthusiasm when the prices started going up and it's never been the same since, even now with many prices finally down.
Living in Vancouver Canada during the height of the CD boom in the late 1980's to late 1990's, I never got the whole CD's were too expensive" thing that is common from Americans or Brits. There was a record store chain called A&B Sound that sold pretty much all their CD's in the $8-14 CDN range ($6-$11 USD or 3.50-6.50 pounds). Their pricing model was to basically sell CD's at cost and "live off" the monthly volume rebates from the record labels. A&B Sound is the reason why Vancouver had the lowest CD prices in Canada, and some of the lowest prices in the western world.
A&B Sounds aggressive pricing also forced other major players established in Vancouver to lower their prices, and was a prime factor in keeping Tower Records from expanding into Vancouver, which they were rumored to be interested in doing by scouting a location.