…before Record Collector itself becomes a collectors’ item
Last month I sent a tweet linking to a blog post bemoaning the lack of record shops in town. As predicted by the author Rad, Zavvi has now closed its doors leaving only HMV as the only dedicated record shop in the city centre.
Growing up I remember trawling the record shops of the city centre on a Monday looking for the best price for a new release single or album. Warp, Woolworths, Our Price, Music Zone, Virgin, Zavvi, HMV on Pinstone Street, the wonderful Fopp and more have all been and gone.
Obviously you can still buy your vinyl (and some CDs) from Jacks and I suspect that some of the city centre supermarkets as well as WHSmith are well stocked up on the Duffy album. But compared to a few years ago it is a sad state of affairs.
The way people obtain and consume music has moved on and I’m as guilty as anyone for neglecting high street shops in favour of purchasing music online. So on Monday it felt a bit peculiar to actually go into a record shop to buy a physical copy of a new CD.
The shop I went to was the much-cherished Sheffield institution that is Record Collector in Broomhill. This Sandman article from a few years back gives the history of the store, but in short it is a proper old-fashioned independent record shop; the kind of which is disappearing fast up and down the country.
It has been going for over 30 years and as well as stocking new releases is packed full of thousands of back catalogue CDs across many genres. And there are always special offers on, so you know you’ll always come out with more than what you went in for.
I don’t think that Sheffield can afford to lose another record store, so would encourage you to pay Record Collector a visit. I may be being a bit nostalgic, but surely there are enough people in a city of this size to keep a couple of music retailers in business?
And if you must dig out the best deals online, then at least stop by the Record Collector eBay shop to see what is going.
Record Collector, Sheffield
Kelly
/ 18 March, 2009Why do we need record stores any more? What is the benefit they give us over Amazon/CDWow etc?
I know it’s sad, but why should we support them?
Sheffield blog
/ 18 March, 2009Although online prices are often cheaper and it is easier to quickly search for something, I do think record stores offer a superior casual and non-specific browsing experience to internet shops. I’ll clearly also admit that nostalgia plays a large part in why I wouldn’t want record shops to disappear completely.
But looking at the bigger picture, if you take away the need for people to leave their home to buy something and therefore eliminate retail from the city/suburban shopping centres then don’t you partly destroy them?
Richard
/ 18 March, 2009When I was a student in Sheffield in the late ’90s I walked past Record Collector twice a day for almost a year. I would pop in often and happily browse the stacks looking for bargains. Most of the time I’d come out with one.
Coincidentally I am once again walking past the store twice a day, this time to a job that gives me much more disposable income than I had as a student, yet in the last six months I haven’t been inside once. These days all my music is digital and bought online. Downloads have replaced disks for me.
I too have fond memories of independent record shops. However the world has moved on.
(I was briefly excited to see your link to Record Collector’s ebay shop but at the moment it’s empty!)
Noel
/ 18 March, 2009I was initially inclined to agree with Kelly’s way of thinking, probably because I don’t use record shops and haven’t for a long while now, so wouldn’t miss them in the slightest. Vinyl offers nothing over a top bitrate sample IMHO (and incidently that of the Gadget shows)
Then I thought, as you say, of the nostaliga and how I’d feel if other shops dissapeared. There has been countless times when I go to town to look at a tangible product to just go buy on the net. I don’t mooch in town or Meadowhall etc but looking at an overall picture I’d hate the fact that I didnt have the option to go look in a record shop.
Record shops have probably had their day though, just as many other things that can move into the world of digital have.
Andy
/ 19 March, 2009The demise of music shops is a real pity – I’m as guilty as most others of buying a lot of my music online, but this is largely because a lot of the music I want to buy is not available in the high street stores – FOPP was probably the closest that I got. If I had a spare lunch time, I could quite happily spend it browsing through FOPP / HMV or Zavvi and would generally see something that I like, and if it’s there in front of me and I like it, unless it’s significantly over priced I’m still likely to buy it.
Record Collector is a gem worth keeping hold of – it’s got a wide selection of music (some 2nd hand, some new), the staff are generally enthusiastic, and…..it smells like a music shop!
An observation that I’d make is that one of the wider selections of music you can find in the city centre nowadays is probably at CEX – it just depends how worried you are about the state of the discs and where they may have come from – I’ve found some CDs in there that I’ve been keeping an eye out for years.
julian dobson
/ 23 March, 2009We won’t save Record Collector just by saying what a wonderful experience it is to flick through racks of CDs, unfortunately. But I agree it’s a gem and wonder if it could do a deal with Spotify or last.fm to include samples of some of its rarities or let people know what’s new in stock.
pippadoll
/ 17 April, 2009I am real fan of Record Collector. I look forward to a trip to Broomhill to buy a new release and browse the older collections. It must be my age, but I get little pleasure from searching the internet for cd’s, I much prefer shopping for them.
I hadn’t realised about the shortage of music shops in the centre either until I read your blog and indeed there are only HMV and Jacks. I don’t particularly like the HMV layout in town and rarely shopthere, so I tend to rely on Record Collector now. I do try to buy as much as I can from there, but it does tend to be a little more expensive.
Rad
/ 17 June, 2009Oooh, hello, I just saw you’d linked to a post of mine!
I’ve moved my blog to http://radicaldepartures.wordpress.com now if anyone was following me.
Rad x