Conference cookie::notes$archive:cd_v1

1167.0. "My Shopping Trip to Tower Records" by TELCOM::ROSENBERG (Dick Rosenberg VRO5-2/C7) Sat Apr 23 1988 08:02

    I went to Tower Records in Boston the other day and picked up some
    interesting INEXPENSIVE CDs that I thought I would report on (and
    give my impressions about shopping at Tower):
    
    Offenbach - Gaite Parisienne
    Khatchaturian - Gayne Suite (Includes Sabre Dance)
    Boston Pops - Arthur Fiedler
         
    On RCA Victrola label, which seems to be RCA's "lower than midpriced"
    line. These list for $7.99 and are currently on sale for $5.99.
    I enjoyed the disk I got. It doesn't say when it was recorded,
    obviously analog, but seems to have lost nothing in the remastering.
    Among the other 10 or so titles in this series are the disc by Dylana
    Jensen (at the time of the recording, 1983, just finished being
    a child prodigy) of the Sibelius Violin Concerto and the Saint Saens
    Intro and Rondo Capriccioso. I paid $16 for that disc 3 years ago.
    It is all digital and great. At $5.99 it's a steal. 
    
    
    Baroque Weekend - The Richard Hickox Orchestra/ASMF - Neville Marriner
    
    On London Weekend Classics series, a kind of "pops" clasical low
    priced line. This disc was $6.99, not on sale. It includes all sorts
    of Baroque warhorses like Pachelbael Canon, Albinoni Adagio, Vivaldi
    Concerto for 2 Trumpets (Philip Jones being one of the trumpeters).
    It is very similar to a record/disc put out by Karl Muenchinger
    a couple of  years ago, with "modern", large orchestra versions
    of many of these pieces. Well recorded (ADD) and, if the "light" 
    interpretations of these pieces are to your taste, worth $7.
    
    Mozart - Sonatas for Violin - Sigiswald Kuijken - Baroque Violin 
    Gustav Leonhardt - Pianoforte
    
    On Pro Arte Gold Label - doesn't really say if it was remastered
    but it was originally copyrighted in 1979 by Seon so it probably
    was. $11.99, not on sale ($1 back from Pro arte {-.25 for stamp
    :-)}). The most expensive of the bunch, but the diametric opposite
    of the one above. Period intrument performances of classical chamber
    music. Gorgeous sound, excellent playing.
    
    The up side of this experience is that there are getting to be some
    worthwhile things out there for not too much money. The down side
    is I just found out from an earlier note that (possibly) all CBS
    CDs were very much on sale. The current sale was on the RCA bunch
    (good stuff but not much of a selection), and that was the one that
    was being bally-hooed. Their policy is that they don't tell you
    about the rest of the sales going on. If you don't know that it's
    on sale, then you are inclined not to buy it. If the CBS classical stuff
    is included in the $10.99 sale that the note talks about, I certainly
    would have bought some of them. Stuff that was not on sale was the same
    $14.98-16.99 that seems to be the list price nowadays. For that
    kind of money I'll go to Electric Gramophone any day. Bottom line
    seems to be - know what's going on and you can get some good deals
    at Tower. Don't know what's going on and it's "caveat emptor".
    
                      
    Dick

    The CBS sale was on pop and jazz, not on classical CD's.  So far I've
    found all the sales at the Boston Tower store to be very well posted.

    I moonlighted as a classical clerk for Tower in California for the last
    6 months, so I know a bit about how they operate.  I NEVER knew of a
    case where the company did not publicize a sale.  What I did discover,
    however, is that they can be incredibly scatterbrained about
    advertising in general.  For example, some label is almost always on
    sale.  In the local papers, the current sale is advertised each Friday,
    showing sample albums and quoting prices.  Occassionally, the sale was
    announced in the newspaper before we learned about it directly from
    Tower, hence no notice of the fact existed in the store.  Tower
    advertising originates in Sacramento, California (the company
    headquarters), and I never heard of a case where anyone checked to see
    if a featured sale album was in stock.  I was nearly assaulted by
    several customers when a La Boheme highlights album was advertised as
    being on sale.  We'd been out of that item (very popular) for several
    days, but some customers were convinced it was a bait-and-switch type
    of conspiracy, when the real reason was simply inept advertising. 
    
    The Tower experience was quite interesting and in stark contrast
    to work at DEC.