Record shop
The examples and perspective in this article may not represent a worldwide view of the subject. (January 2011) |
A record shop or record store is a retail outlet that sells
Even when CDs became popular during the 1990s, people in English-speaking countries still used the term "record shop" to describe a shop selling sound recordings such as CDs. With the vinyl revival of the 21st century, often generating more income than CDs, the name is again accurate.
Modern era
United Kingdom
Prior to the 2000s, more record shops were privately run, independent businesses, meaning that prices could differ from town to town and store to store. In the 2000s, record shops are largely chain-owned and thus prices are fairly similar in different towns. In the United Kingdom the national chain style of selling records and tapes developed with Our Price, itself originally a small independent business founded in the early 1970s that expanded nationwide.
The current record store chains in the UK are HMV, Fopp, and Rough Trade. The enormous increase in sales of vinyl records in the 2000s has provided an opportunity for growth in some sectors. According to a recent study, Brighton, England has the highest number of record stores per 100,000 residents in the world.[citation needed]
United States
With the demise of chains such as
. Most record retailers today are independent retailers.History
Spillers Records in Cardiff, Wales, founded in 1894 by Henry Spiller, is reputed to be the oldest record shop in the world.[1] It originally specialised in the sale of phonographs, cylinders and shellac discs.
Shellac and then vinyl records were popular right up to the 1990s when CDs became the most popular form of recorded music. Soon, however, mail order and internet selling caused prices to fall, and with the advent of downloads and streaming, many record shops were forced to close. The vinyl revival has however increased income for record shops, and many new record shops and even chains of record shops have opened.
Major chains in the UK and North America that have closed in recent years are Our Price, Zavvi,
Current record shop chains in Europe are now
The HMV Vault in Birmingham, England is now the world's largest record shop, opening its doors in October 2019. Before this, the former HMV in Oxford Street, London, England claimed to be the world's largest record store. The shop was originally opened in 1921 by the composer Sir Edward Elgar and had four floors of CDs, LPs, singles and DVDs. During the ‘60s, the in-store recording studio was used by Brian Epstein to record the Beatles' first demo. The revamped store was reopened in 2013 attended by many of the world's biggest stars including Paul McCartney, Robbie Williams and Elton John. The largest record shop in Ireland is Tower Records in Dublin, the largest in Asia is Tower Records in Shibuya, Tokyo and the largest in the United States is Amoeba Records in Los Angeles. The largest record shop in the Nordic countries is Bengans in Goteborg, Sweden, which opened in 1974.[citation needed]
In some countries, electronics stores and department store chains have very large, comprehensive CD departments which now also sell vinyl records. These include
Record stores played a vital role in African American communities for many decades. In the 1960s and 1970s, between 500 and 1,000 black-owned record stores operated in the American South, and probably twice as many in the United States as a whole. African American entrepreneurs embraced record stores as key vehicles for economic empowerment and critical public spaces for black consumers at a time that many black-owned businesses were closing amid desegregation.[2]