DVD REVIEW: ALL THINGS MUST PASS – The Tower Records Story

DVD REVIEW: ALL THINGS MUST PASS – The Tower Records Story
MVD Entertainment
2016
Reviewed by Shane Pinnegar
8/10

Made by Colin son-of-Tom Hanks, All Things Must Pass is a love letter to not just any old record store (though the lessons learned here about the passing of Tower certainly apply to many other record stores which have been laid to rest by the changing economic times), but to Tower Records, a humble store in Hollywood founded by Russ Solomon in 1960 which spread across the world (200 stores in five continents!) before crashing into bankruptcy in 2006.

That’s a long way to fall from a $1 billion profit in 1999, and Hanks pulls no punches when he exposes the good and the bad of the organisation, interviewing many former employees as well as Solomon himself, to get past the superficial and into the labyrinthine financial workings which cause an empire to fall.

Crucially, Hanks explores what the record store meant to generations of music lovers before hipsters foolishly propagated the concept that digital music was better than a physical product we could hold, read, and feel the worth of.

Like Rome, Tower Records did fall, over-reaching and piled too high on top of itself like an enormous game of Jenga, and any viewer who remembers the social aspect of sifting through record store racks will instantly understand the importance of this film, even without the personal connection to Tower Records itself.

Category: Movie & Theatre Reviews