Tower Records Shibuya

Tower Records, and records in general (meaning CDs) are alive in Shibuya. SEVEN FLOORS of tunes. While you fellow music-​loving gaijin may not be able to understand any of the lyrics (there are Western artists strewn throughout, though), you can surely connect with the Listening Station love of a time gone by.

My home away from home! There really isn’t much more you can ask for here, and if you’re visiting for the first time, be prepared to spend a few hours browsing each floor. Even if a particular genre doesn’t interest you, there are plenty of interesting displays to keep you entertained.
The staff is very friendly, especially at the information desk. For special events (which I frequently attend) there are sometimes some communication issues (where to line up, etc) but for the most part everything runs smoothly. There are multiple event spaces including the 8^th floor and basement level, and the first floor is frequently rearranged for mini-​lives and talk sessions with promoting artists.
Tower Records Café is also worth a visit, so make sure to stop by!

I’m wondering how many times I’ve been their. Countless.
Price: Average. Not for bargain shoppers.
Customer service: Awesome. Staffs are huge music fans and proud of working here and really helpful.
Location: Great! After shopping or pigging out or working hard, you can recharge energy to go back home with you brain full of great music!

Paradise for music fans. Also for book lovers. Some buyers has good sense of finding new talents but don’t expect shop staffs’ knowledge. Sometimes you can encounter amazing musicians’ live by in-​store events.

What I liked best was the huge number of listening stations available. I found a previously unknown three disc set that costs considerably more on Amazon (U.S.) as an import.
A great experience for music lovers who may have forgotten what it’s like to buy music that doesn’t come ordered, downloaded or streamed.

Ahhh~A very familiar name I see off in the distance after arriving at Shibuya! For travelers not knowing how to get to Tower Records, I’m going to show you photos, ok? Ok! Seeing the Tower Records’ marquee was like Angels in a choir singing in my ears. .. I’m gravitated, pulled into, coaxed heading towards the gleaming marquee-​Yes, I’m coming to visit you Tower Records!
Finally entering the store entrance was a welcoming sight. .. So, I thought~NOT! Nothing is in English except, the words, «Tower Records!» One word I screamed a lot in Tokyo was this word I learned in Korean, «Borragitta!» which literally means, «I’m ruined» or «I’m screwed”-Hah! Not knowing how to read kanji or kana, let alone speak ANY Japanese dialect, «YAH~Borragitta!!» Perusing isle after isle of records, CDs, posters, video DVDs: Yah, Dorothy~You’re in Japan! There’s nothing recognizable here; the only things recognizable to me personally, were seeing the Korean music scene and the Korean celebrities I became so familiar while living in South Korea.
Snooping through every floor, the other recognizable scene was the coffee culture inside Tower Records. The coffee line was a longer wait than waiting buying my train ticket at Narita Airport! Grrrrr~! Forget the coffee-I’m not waiting thirty minutes for coffee but, I overheard two Korean ladies exclaimed, «Ooh~MASHTA! (Oooh-​Delicious!)». Yeah but still, it’s not worth waiting thirty minutes! PASS! I see people huddled at these tiny tables intently peering at their computer screens. Hmmmm? Internet here? Maybe, possibly, yes?
I ask the clerk, «Internet?» The dude said something to me in Japanese and he immediately threw his arms and hands up making an X gesture! WHAT? AGAIN? Hah! I figured that the gesture he made means, «I don’t speak English» or is it the word, «NO?» Ok, ok, ok~Sorry, Dude! Yah-​You have a nice store but, nobody speaks English here!
So, the lesson I learned is if you don’t read kanji or kana and worst yet, you don’t speak Japanese, as my Korean friends words ringing in my ears: «Chommallyo! Borragitta! (Really! You’re SCREWED!!)!!

While this store has a great selection of new music and movies prices can be a bit over the top, especially when there are thousands of used stores selling practically brand new mercy at half the price. I digress if your on a tight schedule and want to pick up something new then by all means Tower Records probably has it. Though if you have time shop around especially in Akihabara.

I have one mission: to find a somewhat obscure CD of train melodies that play when you arrive at a station. Each station has its own song so you can ID the stop if you somehow miss the guy with the nasally voice repeat «Yoyogi…Yoyogi desu» six times.
My friend is nonplussed when I tell her to meet me in Shibuya to help me find a record, then explain what I’m looking for as we walk into Tower Records. After we wander around for a bit, she reluctantly asks a worker where we could find the densha CDs. Talk about Japanese professionalism, the worker doesn’t immediately laugh in our face.
Prize in hand, we walk around the floors while syrupy J-​Pop pumps from the store’s speaker system. The experience is oddly nostalgic as I haven’t stepped foot in a real music stores in the States since the ‘90s. Sure, now the lighting is more interesting, blu-​rays sit on shelves next to music and there’s a café/​bar that’s more reminiscent of a bookstore, but walking through aisles on that treasure hunt to find something cool and unexpected is never a bore.

La Fnac à l’échelle tokyoite: 6 étages consacrés à la musique de tous les genre.
Forcément, il y a un niveau consacré à la Jpop, mais les autres sont plus conventionnels: pop, rock, jazz ou classique, tout y est!
Il y a aussi un bar et au rez-​de-​chaussée une scèné pour les show case!
On a eu la «chance» d’assister un à concert d’idole et sa foule de fans hystériques (que des otaku forcément). C’était assez troublant: une masse compact de gars aux genoux de 3 filles déguisées en ours en peluche criant et chantant des trucs niais sur des airs horribles!
Les vendeuses sont très pros, souriantes et attentives à ce qu’on veut. A noter qu’au dernier étage, le vendeur parlait parfaitement anglais, ce qui est assez rare pour le remarquer!

Unilocal 100 Challenge 2015 — ¹¹⁄₁₀₀
Do you remember the speeds of vinyl records? Have you ever owned or used a record player that was not a stereo component?
Most people over the age of 30 might be familiar with vinyl records in single and LP variety. Singles played at 45 rpm and LPs at 33 ¹⁄₃ or 78 rpm.
Why nostalgia? Because the name Tower Records was born during the hey day of LP records. I loved visiting their stores in the States, and after they came to Japan (after me), I was happy to see a familiar face. However, when they finally landed here there was a huge difference to what I had remembered: CDs were becoming the big thing and vinyl LPs were mostly gone or unavailable anymore. However, the joy and excitement of getting new music on a shiny disc was still there, so OK, I can do CDs.
I don’t know how many stores they eventually opened in Japan but I’ve been to almost all of them. Then they shut down in the US, then the rest of the world, and in Japan, only a few stores remain. Thank you analog media moguls for keeping them alive.
So now we have here a huge mix of semi-​digital media: CDs, DVDs, Blu-​Rays. No digital download service. Lots of imported magazines, music paraphenalia, etc. The sheer variety and quantity of music-​related goods is staggering.
Give yourself an hour or so to explore all of the floors, then recharge on the second floor — yup, they’re trying to be hipster by adding the Tower Café on 2^nd floor. It’s not bad; prices reasonable; latest music playing in the background.
Although I love seeing so many reminders of the joy I felt many years ago when they first opened and I was still collecting CDs, something is different now. I can’t remember the last time I bought a CD or DVD. Any music is a digital download; any movie is a rental online or the local T-​chain.
Great spot for physical media, nostalgia and occasionally, you can find that one CD that you’ve been meaning to buy for years. Prices are somewhat lower than the exorbitant numbers you see in Japanese «music» stores but not at the levels when you could get a direct US-​import for close to or less than the price in the States (due to the exchange rate and Tower’s pricing policies).
If you’re from the US, a visit here is definitely in order. See how TR Japan has modified and kept the concept alive. Four stars.

Pretty hard to miss when in Shibuya with its giant red & yellow signage. Stateside, Tower Records and other music chains (Sam Goody, Borders, Suncoast) are long gone. Really nice to see this store is still around: all 8 floors of it. Stepping inside is like going back in a time machine to the late 90’s when music stores were still thriving, thank you iTunes for their demise. Honestly miss going through bins & racks looking for stuff. Last of the non DJ turntable owners, I recommend if you still collect vinyl or just feeling nostalgic. Long live Tower Records!!!

I totally wished I checked in here, sigh.
Either way, my experience here was nostalgic (in a mostly good way). I miss the old Tower Records near my old place by Lincoln Center (in NYC). It was my mecca of joy, where I’d kill countless hours looking at CDs and listening to new music.
When I returned to Shibuya after a long hiatus from Japan I was really glad to see this place was still here, in all it’s multi-​floored glory.
As many people have pointed out — you can’t miss this place if you’re strolling around Shibuya. The huge yellow signs and the «No Music No Life» slogan printed proudly on the front is impossible to ignore.
This place boasts a ton of floors dedicated to different genres. Naturally, coming from the U.S. I was mostly curious to see the Japanese section as it was unnecessary to look at American songs that I can easily download off iTunes. Their local selection was impressive — though for obvious reasons they had plenty of new/​recent artists and had a limited selection of older releases by older bands/​singers. In a way it was kind of disappointing as I was hoping to complete some old collections that I missed in years past.
Nonetheless it was great to see an old symbol of the music industry still operating in Tokyo. One funny takeaway — the only thing I noticed after seeing all these CDs around is how I was sort of glad I don’t have to buy all these discs that would clutter my place. But for nostalgia’s sake it was still nice to be able to pick up a CD and re-​live the past.

yep, Tower records is alive! Japan has several with the flagship store in Shibuya. 8 huge floors. especially good jazz section. some stuff is quite discounted/​cheap. look around. there is now a café/​bar with big couches as well. a great place to chill from the busy streets. also a performance space downstairs where occasionally international artists present a new record. this store is a must for music fans.

Woah, people still buy CDs? Apparently so after visiting this massive record store.
8 floors of CDs and a few vinyls to choose from. This is a pretty neat chain record store with a lot of booths to listen to new and old CDs. I particularly loved the «emo» section. I’m glad to see the revival.
Price wise it’s a bit expensive if you are visiting from the states, but I think in general these are the normal prices.
It’s a store worth experiencing, but I’m not sure I would buy anything in particular unless you have very specific cd needs.

The building is easy to find because it is yellow and there is a big bill board on it.
There are often events such as bands playing in front of the store when the bands release a new song or albam.
The building has 8^th floors so if you get tired, you can drop by the café on the 2^nd floor.
I’m sure you’ll find something new for you here.
I hope these CDshops survive even though we can download music on the Internet so easily.

You really can’t miss this place. Covered in bright yellow and red, Tower Records live by their motto, «No Music, No Life». So true indeed. I can wander around in there, going through listening booth to listening booths and it’ll easily eat up a few hours.
I always find myself walking in during the day and walking out to find the sun gone and the skies are dark.
Music is of course the main product you’ll find in here but I’m usually here for it’s foreign books. The 2^nd floor (Tower Books) is dedicated to mostly English magazines, books and English books about Japan. It doesn’t have a lot of fiction books but it’s has an interesting selection of film/​television/​music section, a history corner, children’s books and some quirky selections of magazines and lifestyle books. Between the isle of books, there are also 2 sets of seats decked out with cup holders and wall sockets. Only in Japan do you get this kind of customer service.
Foreign books are can get pricey in Japan so I would recommend getting their loyalty card and earn credit for future purchases.
PS. the café on the same floor is also very cozy and well worth a visit.
Oh and last but not least, they only have escalators going up so when you leave, remember to go tot he other side of the building to take the elevator or stairs down.