What makes a great record store?

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(03.09.05) You know, I think there is something more than policy and lay out that makes a record store great. All the great record stores have an almost indefinable quality to them; something in the air; an atmosphere and it is the minutiae of certain elements that create this.

I’m not sure it’s possible to list all the things that make a record store great. Like how the staff knows you’re name and like to talk about the music they sell that they obviously have a fantastic knowledge of. Not only the genuine passion of the staff, but the details of the shop itself; its appearance on the surface and what lies beneath the layers and rows from year after year of selling music; the history of the shop, its legacy of music passed on, its battle to stay open and remain a vital point of access between record labels and punters.

A great record store is like a treasure chest, its isles full of amazing music and fantabulous presentations on CD, cassette, 7″, 10″, 12″, picture-disc, limited editions, DVD, VHS, fanzines, magazines, T-shirts, CD-R’s, the local rag, flyers, mailing lists etc. –you name it, a central hub that whole scenes and movements rely on. Just to be in one place with so many hours of work and passion poured into it by all the artists, labels, distributors, manufacturers, printers, pressers, designers, photographers – all of it stacked up on the shelves for your perusal – can be almost overwhelming. The amount of input required to create that environment is so monumental it is barely fathomable sometimes.

There’s a smell in the air of fresh cardboard and brand new shiny wax plates just waiting for the needle to find its way around the grooves of its precious form. The windows are covered with posters for local shows and the latest records tipped as this week’s hot new shit that you just gotta check out.

But there is something so wonderfully tactile about record stores: The fact that you can hold these things in your hand and take them in as if some how absorbing them through the pours in your skin. The excitement of knowing there is all this music in this one place and all you gotta do is find it is a feeling to be relished.

As I write about these record stores I do have one in mind. I’m pretty sure there are other record stores like it, but this is my one. This is the record store that I treasure most –the one that I share the most history with and the one that I buy most of my records in. There’s a wonderful story unfolding at the moment as the shop has had a righteous changing of hands recently. I was so pleased it almost brought tears of joy to my eyes to find out that those who had fought so hard to keep it going over the last 10 years or so have finally bought out the owner and are now running the show. The truth is they have been running it for years and have turned it into the beautiful place it is today and at last the shop is in the care of their safe and loving hands.

So maybe it’s people that make a record store great. Maybe it’s the years of dedication and knowledge that they pour into a shop that makes it great. Maybe that’s what’s been soaked into the walls and gives out this heavy atmosphere. A great record store is where great music resides for people to come and find it and then? Who’s to say what experiences and joys someone will get from the record they found in that shop? Who knows.

I’m lucky enough to live in London and have a fantastic choice of great record stores to choose from, but where ever possible, go out and leaf through those stacks of 12’s and next time you do take a big deep breath and get a lung full of the shop, close your eyes and smile, you’re in safe hands.

This article originally appeared on the Planet-Mu Forum

Photo courtesy of Chronogram Magazine

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