Goodbye Yellow Brick Wall

I own close to 800 CDs, and around 600 -- or 75 percent -- of those were bought at Tower Records. They mainly came from the Tower in Pacific Plaza on Scott Road at home and from the Tower in Lincoln Park at home away from home. Sometimes they also came from Towers while on the road -- the Tower on the Sunset Strip in Los Angeles, the Tower at the corner of Columbus and Bay in San Francisco, the Tower on Jeweller's Row in Chicago, the Tower in the Village in New York City.

Some people feel the compulsion to visit the Hard Rock Cafe in whichever city they travel to. For me, I look up the local Tower. There really isn't a good reason for doing so -- the merchandise was mostly the same everywhere, but the local vibe in each store made you feel like you were walking into the independent store down the street. CDs stacked on the floor everywhere like someone's living room, cut-outs and other promos tacked on top of one another, staff with strong recommendations and thoughtful counsel, so much music to sample, shelves of fanzines like no other store carries. In New York City, the store is pumped up and media-ised. In L.A., it's whirring with a rock god buzz. In Chicago, it's low-key and unpretentious. So one could argue, if you only had one hour to spend in a city, head to the local Tower. Of course I'm stretching it a little here, but that's because I'm biased.

I'm biased because local record stores in Singapore tend to not stock selections that befit hours of music nerd browsing. When the Tower opened on Scott Road, it was just down the street from Raffles Girls' School (even closer after we moved from Jalan Kuala to Anderson Road), and a perfect Monday after-school activity was to have lunch at La Creperie in Far East Plaza, then go across to Pacific Plaza where I'd pick out 10 CDs I wish I could buy, but only two that my allowance would allow. After about two hours cruising the aisles, either MP or Kat would grab me and make me check out.

Those were the days when you bought CDs because people made good albums. Occasionally I'd tape a single off the radio, but mostly, I bought CDs and would be happy with the entire track list. I'm not a music industry expert, and all of my knowledge comes from someone else's surmising that I've read in Rolling Stone or Entertainment Weekly. Most record company executives say that online music purchasing and piracy is leading to the downfall of music retail. I'd like to say that if artists made good albums, like they're supposed to if they're good enough, people would be buying more than 99-cent iTunes.

But it's also because music is simply boring these days. As Joel Selvin, the San Francisco Chronicle pop music critic points out in a great article today, Tower opened in 1968 during the Summer of Love and the height of Haight-Asbury. Bands were exciting and pushing the envelope, rock & roll was saving the world -- or least the world's psyche, and nothing sounded sweeter than the needle hitting the vinyl. What do we have these days? The MTV Video Awards, American Idol, and Danity Kane. Enough to fill up an iPod, not enough to leave a mark on this generation.

I'm sad because I can pick out every CD that was a Tower purchase in my collection, and each one contributed to my obsession in some way. Like some people make a bar their bar, a barbershop their barbershop or a coffee shop their coffee shop, because they had a favourite bartender or barber or baristic, Tower was my record shop, one reason being that it was always well stocked with the Springsteen repertoire and Beach Boys two-fer reissues.

I know because I always check. I'm going to miss biking down to Clark and Belden.