man do I miss Tower records and

Well, you probably are being a little too harsh. Each generation has a different value set from the next. Our parents didn't care for a lot of things about us. Being so sure that your values are the right ones is just ignorance or arrogance or both. (Ok, maybe I'm being too harsh!)

On a similar topic, though, I was saddened to hear an interview with Billy Corgan who said that he doesn't see any point in making albums any more. He thinks he/the Pumpkins will just release songs from now on.

Yes, he's playing to the new values. And I can't say whether it's right or wrong. I'm just someone who valued the long playing album format, and will be sad to see it disappear if it happens.

Cheers.

Tfkaudio: we all judge each other we just don't realize that were doing it.

The comment by Billy Corgan in the post above is really sad. If artists only release singles, there will be pressure to focus on what is likely to be commercially successful. Music will become more Top 40 oriented and formulaic. That's fine so far as it goes. Certainly there are many albums containing songs that are just "filler" to get the album out and meet contractual committments. However, there are also many albums that have hidden gems pushing artistic boundaries or just don't meet the commercial format. I'm always thrilled to find things on albums by my favourite artists that never see the light of day on most radio stations. Many of these are amongst my favourite tunes.

I miss Tower as well.

i feel lucky to have known tower and its people. tower's demise started long before napster and downloading. the internet itself put the world at one's fingertips, and as for our culture, music became less important.....store inventories dwindled for well over a decade, which was really their lifeblood, and the core customer simply stayed home, or stopped collecting music all together....the good news is that vinyl is now growing faster than any other entertainment software....not because its arguably better, but because its 'nuthin' but fun'.....it has been since i proudly played jan and dean on a g.e. wildcat.