A vinyl-only shop is opening today on the 10^th floor of the Tower Records flagship store in Tokyo. No CDs, no cassette tapes, just vinyl. And not just a handful of records, but 70,000 records of both Japanese and Western artists. Of the total number of records on sale, 30,000 are new titles and reissues, and the other 40,000 will be second-hand LPs of rock ‘n’ roll and soul.

Now if you’re thinking Wait, I thought that Tower Records closed all of their stores and went bankrupt in 2006?  Yes, they did, but Tower Records Japan is a completed independent company. They operate over 80 stores in Japan.

In Japan, the desire for vinyl records is as strong as it is anywhere else. With a large collection of indie record stores in Tokyo, the local music industry is providing Japanese consumers with more places to buy vinyl. In 2014, HMV started opening vinyl-only locations in Tokyo. And in 2018, Sony Music opened a pressing plant, after they noticed that vinyl records were getting tens of millions of sales in Japan.

The Tower Records vinyl-only store is a specialty shop where customers will be able to discover albums while listening to the analog sounds of various records through a vintage speaker. The store will also be used as a space to hold events related to artists who produce music in vinyl (previously, the space was used for pop-up events).

In Tokyo, many of the best vinyl stores are in a popular neighborhood called Shibuya. Many of the stores cater to specific tastes, such as Balearic, Japanese indie, Album-oriented rock, techno, latin, R & B,  dance, nu jazz, hard bop, J-pop, K-pop, and hip hop. It is in this neighborhood that Tower Records new vinyl only shop exists.

Vinyl never dies.

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