POP REVIEW THE STORE : Sunset’s Twin Towers : Virgin Takes on Tower Records With More Flash, More Choices, Higher Prices

For weeks a billboard over the construction site at a prominent corner on the Sunset Strip has proclaimed that “if music is your religion”--and on this notably church-free stretch of roadway, it may well be--”then we’re building your temple.”

Said temple is, of course, the spanking new Virgin Megastore, the first of its international kind on American shores.

Impressive as the outlet is, the claim might seem a little presumptuous. Worshipers already have a shrine to shrink-wrapped product just down the road in the time-tested form of Tower Sunset, the traditional spot for news cameras to collect on-the-spot fan reactions at midnight sales openings, in-store autograph signings, parking-lot publicity stunts, et al.

Will true believers now have to choose one over the other? Or can this mean two temples of musicdom just a mile from each other--Mecca East and Mecca West, bookending a sanctified Strip?

Chances are, most of the bona-fide faithful will want to make dual pilgrimages. The homier Tower (at 8801 Sunset Blvd.) still holds some marked advantages over its new rival denomination, especially price-wise. But there’s no doubt that the larger Virgin (at 8000 Sunset Blvd.) has impressively set a new standard for what to expect in a total home-entertainment software store. It may take a few months for parishioners to decide which combination of personality, price and product availability they prefer; call it a denominational dead heat for now.

At the tastefully designed shopping complex where Virgin shares space with an art-house movie complex and a soon-to-arrive supermarket, the store’s sprawling first floor is devoted entirely to music. The second floor is a Blockbuster-within-a-Virgin: home video up the wazoo, with not only a remarkable array of VHS tapes and laser discs (for sale and rent in both formats) but also sections devoted to CD-Interactive and video games.

The first floor, on which most of the shelf and display space is devoted to CDs, looks like the future of music retail in more ways than one: While the rest of the industry will finally be getting rid of the CD cardboard longbox come April, the Virgin Megastore has already done it, displaying jewel boxes in plastic frames called “savers” that can only be opened at the counter. These frames have tabs on top that make the CDs much easier to flip through than your usual stack o’ plastic.

The number of audio titles available--said to be over 100,000--is unprecedented, with surprising amounts of space given over to non-mainstream genres like world music, reggae and Latin, and two entire small walls given over to blues. The coverage isn’t comprehensive, though: Amazingly, there’s no gospel section whatsoever. As of opening weekend, there wasn’t any Christmas music section, either, though clerks promised that would be rectified--soon, one would hope.

Where rock hounds will have their greatest field day is in Virgin’s import section, more extensive than any in this town by far. There, from about $20 to $35, you can find CDs unavailable domestically--like British best-of collections from Los Lobos, Elton John, Eric Clapton and Was (Not Was), or a Japanese version of Paul McCartney’s out-of-print “Unplugged,” or albums by artists from ABBA to Neil Young that have never been released on CD here.

The same goes for laser-disc buffs, who’ll wax ecstatic over the Japanese imports on the second floor--like three boxed sets covering every “Twin Peaks” episode (about $250 per box, and all sold before we got a chance to get out our credit cards), or the very different European cut of “Legend,” with its Jerry Goldsmith score ($60).

Laser-disc aficionados will also adore Virgin/Blockbuster for renting discs, a service not provided by standard-bearer Tower, which has avoided rentals in trying to keep laser strictly a sell-through market.

Headphone-equipped demonstration posts spread out through the store are Virgin’s most notable claim to fame: 16 stations to stop and watch a movie (with continually playing laser discs), 58 to hear a new CD and 14 spots to test your skills at a video game. You have to go with whatever software has been installed at that particular post, rather than pick your own, but it’s not as if there aren’t enough choices.

Mecca it would seem, then. Now the tempering news: In a price comparison on both new and catalogue CDs, Tower came in a dollar or two lower on most, though a number of sale items were the same price at both stores. More discouragingly, unlike Tower, Virgin/Blockbuster offers no standard discount on VHS or laser-disc product, with only a few hit titles on sale at a time.

Virgin also looks to be staying out of the book and magazine business for now, so you’ll have to get your copy of Sassy magazine, the new Anne Rice book or “The Autobiography of Malcolm X” down the street.

Then again, what other record store has a ticket counter for its sister airline right next to the jazz section? Let’s all sing a hymn to the more novel merits of corporate crossover.