Abubilla Music

The sad demise of the record store

Written by Andy Patterson

I am very much a child of the 80s. My first forays into music were via the cassette. So when you see that picture on Facebook of the cassette tape and the pencil, and it says hit like if you know the link between the two? If I were a ‘Like-Clicker’ then I would click on that.

But I did occasionally buy Vinyl. As a big Queen fan, I have a vinyl copy of A Night at the Opera somewhere that I bought from a car boot sale (FACT: I am named in the thanks on the 30th anniversary double disc release of said ‘A Night at the Opera’ – was that a name I dropped, Yes it was! evidence here). I also have a few Lindisfarne releases on vinyl, and a copy of Pinky and Perky’s Party album.

But I was never really into vinyl as much as others were. Just as others lament the vinyl record, I miss the cassette. It was my first foray into recording through my Tascam Porta 02.

Saying that, seeing this next blog made me sad a little. One of the big reasons for independent record stores closing was because they could no longer compete with the megastores of the world – the HMV, Virgin and Tower records of this world. A trip to London as a schoolboy was not complete without a trip to Picadilly Circus to go in the massive Tower Records (now a clothes shop).

So, check out this blog of pictures of record stores that have closed. Those of you who have traveled around South West London may have seen number 38 – as I have many times on the way around the one way system in Wandsworth.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/40-sad-portraits-of-closed-record-stores

I was sad to hear Fopp had gone, and HMV are also having problems now, and seem to make more from selling technology (iPods and headphones etc) and DVD boxsets than they do from music. Such is the advance of Amazon and Play.com and the other stores out there… As good and as cheap as they are, nothing beats flicking through a rack of CDs or 12 inch albums.