It is quite incredible that this expensive, technology-driven CD sales operation—in many ways state-of-the-art—does not offer music clips for its visitors. Perhaps this is a feature that @Tower will soon add, but it is a glaring lapse at launch—particularly in light of the site's deep stock (over 150,000 titles) and excellent searching capabilities. With CDs, even hard-to-find ones, located so easily, it is all the more frustrating not to be able to listen to them. And there is little else on the site to remind visitors that Tower Records is in the music business.

Instead, @Tower offers QuickTime VR views of some of the Tower Records stores and a surprisingly amateurish slide show of the company's history. You can read selected articles from Tower's "Pulse!" in-store publications, and there are some good liner notes to be found in the Muze CD database. But that's it.

What @Tower does, and does well, is help you find and order the CD(s) you want. The site tags you with your own ID number as soon as you enter, and makes note of your favorite musical category (which it remembers on subsequent visits). The aforementioned search function finds your selections almost instantaneously, and the checkout process is smooth and efficient. An overnight shipping option is provided for the "Top 1,000" titles; Tower even e-mails you the tracking number so you can check your shipment's progress on the FedEx site.

But if @Tower's efficiency makes it a good place to shop, its transaction-oriented ambience makes it considerably less involving to browse. N2K's excellent Music Boulevard, with an equally deep selection of titles and a much richer online atmosphere, is for now the better bet.

(Editor's Note: Music Boulevard has merged into CDNow, which is considerably less compelling. But the Tower site has improved substantially since this review first appeared.)

(Reviewed December 3, 1996)