Same case for me, Reese...no question that I used to buy music more frequently when the music superstores were still around. The HMV superstore in downtown Toronto used to be my favourite. I don't think I ever had the pleasure of visiting a Tower Records store. I remember being a young teen and my uncle took me music shopping downtown. During that trip, he said we'd check out Tower Records, only to find out it had closed only a couple of weeks prior.
NativeNY...yes, that "All Things Must Pass" doc was very interesting and also sad.
We had a major chain in Canada called Sunrise Records, which was founded in the late 70's. They ended up closing down about 10 years ago, and then an investor decided he wanted to resurrect the Sunrise Records chain, by using their brand and re-strategizing. He focused on opening smaller stores in malls, in more suburban type cities, with a mix of CDs, dvds, t-shirts, vinyl, games, etc. It seems to be working well. He ended up buying out HMV in the UK, when those stores were at risk of closing, a few years back. He also bought out FYE in the US, and now he's opened a couple of FYE stores here as well, for the first time. The pandemic seemed to slow the expansion of the chain, but it's nice to see that music stores can still be successful, with the right strategy in place. Most of these stores that operate under this chain don't have heaps and heaps of CDs and vinyl for sale, but at least it's something. Best of all, some of their stores stock the latest Motown releases.
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