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Music is an important part of our culture and record stores play a vital part in keeping the power of music alive
Oct 1, 2025
Well, everybody faces the fact there really aren't many records stores around to just go and browse. Maybe browse online, yet that tactile feel of flipping through a stack of vinyl remains one of life's simple pleasures.
I used to work in a record store. I'm kind of a record nerd.
The 'cool' record store. It is where you can talk to people who are like you. They look like you, think like you and, most tellingly like the same music as you - the only comparable experience these days would probably be an art museum - an actual place where you can stand and simply be surrounded by your heroes.
The Independent Record Store is the reason why i STILL do music...It seems like they're the only ones that Really care about the real music lovers...we need them...they're our balance to all of the music we are FORCED to listen to...they're the only ones that may still suggest something NEW and FRESH instead of just what's popular.
I definitely didn't have a lot of money. I had been fired from a record store. I was just trying to get by. I was on unemployment. I didn't have anything going full-time.
I love Rebel Rebel in Manhattan's West Village for vinyl, but record stores are hard to come by these days. I almost don't even use iTunes. I mostly use music subscription services. But I'll go into Rebel Rebel once a month or so and buy everything I love on vinyl.
It's important to keep indie record stores alive because their unique environments introduce music lovers to things in a very personal way.
I always tell the girls never take it seriously, if you never take it seriously you never get hurt, if you never get hurt you always have fun, and if you ever get lonely just go to the record store and visit your friends.
How about no one's ever going to outsell Michael Jackson at selling records because the record industry is over. Game over. There's no more record stores. With no more record stores there's no more pressing plants. With no more pressing plants, there's no more charts.
I have a sort of tactility about music. I go into record stores and just run my fingers over it, the spines.
I miss the experience of walking into a record store and find old stuff without expecting to.
I don't think radio is selling records like they used to. They'd hawk the song and hawk the artist and you'd get so excited, you'd stop your car and go into the nearest record store.
Indie record stores are as important to a touring musician as an incredible thrift store. I can't overstate how good it feels to place an original pressing of 'veedon fleece' in your most underused of shirts and pack it into your suitcase, anxiously awaiting the day you get home so that you can play it as though it was your reward or trophy from the long journey you had just finished embarking on.
I think record stores play a huge part in discovering new music. When I was growing up I would spend hours going through all the bins looking for something new that seemed interesting to me and that could relate to what I was listening to at the time. This is why I want to support National Record Store Day.
I grew up working at a record store and listening to vinyl. Even if it's side A and B, there's always this continuity that really turned me on about music.
[Columbia House] magazines were how I found out about the punk world going on in New York. Because of what I read, at the age of 15, I hounded the local record store to order a copy of Horses [1975] for me by Patti Smith.
The openness of rural Nebraska certainly influenced me. That openness, in a way, fosters the imagination. But growing up, Lincoln wasn't a small town. It was a college town. It had record stores and was a liberal place.
One night, I was chatting with a group of 16-year-old girls over a few drinks about a name for the record store ... A bunch of ideas were bounced around, then, as we were all new to business, someone suggested Virgin. It smacked of new and fresh and at the time the word was still slightly risqué, so, thinking it would be an attention-grabber, we went with it.
I always show love to the local record stores because they actually listen to me... They know the songs on my cds. They look like me, straight out the hood. They know whats hot and what is on they shelf.
I did find some time to go to a record store and check out "Headstrong" actually in the racks. It was pretty cool; I never thought I'd see my own CD sitting there with everyone else's. I made my Mom take lots of pics!
It's like the iPod playlist has killed the way we think of the normal album, so let's think of this as just saying you go into your record store and all those categories and all those different ways of segregating music have been thrown out the window, so the difference between myself in real life in that is that I'm the opposite.
Independent record stores are like a casino where you put down your money and you always win. How amazing to discover gems you didn't know about, to meet someone more passionate than you are, and to feel at home in a place you may never have been to before. I'm convinced they will never lose their place - Long may they rule.
When I was a kid, I would go to the record store, where there was a bin of things they didn't know quite how to classify. Those were my choices. That's where you would find Captain Beefheart or an early electronic album.
They have removed the struggle to find anything. And therefore there is no genuine sense of discovery. Struggle is the first thing we know getting along the birth canal, out in the world. It's pretty basic. Book store owners and record store owners used to be oracles, in that way; you'd go in this dusty old place and they might point you toward something that would change your life. All that's gone.
Whether I'm doing music or I'm walking down the street or I'm in a record store buying a record or I walk into a comic store and I'm buying comics or having a drink with my friends, it's the same me.
The idea of, 'The journey is the destination' is put into action by browsing in an indie record store. Besides, a human being is a much better guide than a 'More Like This' link on the internet.
When I discovered blues - I was 12-years-old - I didn't discover it in America where it was from; I discovered it from Fleetwood Mac - the original Peter Green Fleetwood Mac, Saveloy Brown - like British blues interpretations of it,' which then, when I started the liner notes and seeing all these names, I was like, 'Who's Willie Dixon?' Then I go to the record store and ask the guy there and he goes, 'Oh, you don't know anything.' And so, to me, that's the root of most of it anyway.
Record stores keep the human social contact alive it brings people together. Without the independent record stores the community breaks down with everyone sitting in front of their computers
We are drowning in a sea of Myspace, blather, and too much information. Music is everywhere and nowhere. The independent record store is the solution, a place staffed by friendly (or not) people who are actually paid to weed through this crap and help you find the good stuff.
I can't even enjoy a blade of grass unless I know there's a subway handy, or a record store or some other sign that people do not totally regret life. It's more important to confirm the least sincere. The clouds get enough attention as it is.
However, I have never clogged myself with the praises of pastoral life, nor with nostalgia for an innocent past of perverted acts in pastures. No. One need never leave the confines of New York to get all the greenery one wishes—I can’t even enjoy a blade of grass unless I know there’s a subway handy, or a record store or some other sign that people do not totally regret life. It is more important to affirm the least sincere; the clouds get enough attention as it is and even they continue to pass. Do they know what they’re missing? Uh huh.
I always knew I'd be in music in some sort of capacity. I didn't know if I'd be successful at it, but I knew I'd be doing something in it. Maybe get a job in a record store. Maybe even play in a band. I never got into this to be a star.
In the past, people were going to record stores and buying albums or CDs. And the label was exposing their artist as much as possible and maybe getting them picked up by a major. Now I tell people to cut a good tune and have it up in the marketplace the next day. You better be prepared to give it away, and people will come pay to see you.
My friend worked at a record store in Burlington and I really liked R.E.M. and a lot of music, but I didn't go to see much. I was 16, so I wasn't in bars unless I knew the band and could get in.
I became Iggy because I had a sadistic boss at a record store. I'd been in a band called the Iguanas. And when this boss wanted to embarrass and demean me, he'd say, 'Iggy, get me a coffee, light.'
Once I got into punk rock, I started mail-ordering albums, because a lot of the record stores in my area didn't carry the punk bands from England or Sweden or Chicago or Los Angeles
I guess I probably took New York for granted. Growing up, playing in the street, going down to the Avenue to the record store and to the grocery store and stuff like that.
Once at a record store in San Francisco, over a thousand kids showed up. They pushed forward and broke a window. A big piece of glass fell on top of this girl. And the girl's throat was slit. She just got slit. And I remember there was blood everywhere. Oh God, so much blood. And she grabbed her throat and was bleeding and everyone just ignored her. Why? Because I was there and they wanted to grab at me and get my autograph. I wonder whatever happened to that girl.
I don't have a good attention span and can't spend long in record stores or video shops or games emporiums without getting grumpy.
Record stores are great because it's good to physically get your hands on the music instead of downloading. It's always better to get the artwork too.
Look at music for what it's worth around the world and not just America. In other countries, people are still buying CDs and going to record stores. But in America, it's all about digital. The game is breaking down. But, look at me, you need to know how to play the game the right way.
What I would argue in my defence is that shows like Britain's Got Talent and The X Factor have actually got people more interested in music again and are sending more people into record stores.
I don't go to record stores to look at my albums, but it's always a thrill to see them.
The one constant in this ever changing music business is the heartfelt and “ear to the ground” Indie Record Stores that avid music fans and artists alike know they can count on to keep music thriving locally. I tour all over the world, and it's these Indie Record Stores that many times make or break a market. People will always want an “album” to hold, not just have downloaded, and Indies fill that need and then some.
I try to explain that to my kids - the experience of going to a record store, flipping through racks and finding that album cover that intrigues you - but my kids don't want to know about it. They download the one song on the album they like, and pay their 99 cents.
I still like to go to record stores, I like to just wander around and I'll buy whatever catches my attention.
Try this experiment: one day go in a record store and just try and guess what the music sounds like by looking at the album cover.
I do a lot of curiosity buying; I buy it if I like the album cover, I buy it if I like the name of the band, anything that sparks my imagination. I still like to go to record stores, I like to just wander around and I'll buy whatever catches my attention.
A lot of people see a Nissan ad and they see a finished product in a record store or on iTunes and that's the face of the band.