‘Omega’ ‘Andy’s’ ‘Megahertz’ ‘Harry’s’ ‘Sam Goody’s’ ‘4play’: Record stores we have loved and lost.

 

With the news that ‘Virgin Megastores’ are going to be ‘re-branded’ by the management team into a new store group called ‘Zavvi’, I thought it was a good opportunity to look back on some of the great record stores we have loved and lost.

 

Whether it was ‘Andy’s’ or ‘Omega’, ‘Our Price’ or ‘4play’, ‘Music Junction’ or ‘Music Zone (Trade Direct)’ or even the record departments of ‘John Menzies’ and ‘Boots’, which record stores did you like visiting on the high street and which stores do you miss the most?

tbh in the early/mid 70's and late 80's i was so dissatisfied with the current music that i was heavily into retro... so i scoured second hand shops for 60's classics. these back street shops dont seem to exist any longer... it paid off though, in long eaton i found an electrical shop that had loads of 60's singles, mint condition, selling cheaply! every penny of my pocket money/school dinner money and school bus fare went on them!

 

 

I grew up in Elgin in Scotland. When I started buying records I used to generally go to Boots, then Woolies as they had more up to date singles (the whole top 40 on 7"!) and then finally to the town's only dedicated record shop 'Sound and Vision'. This was the best place to get singles which didn't chart as they would be reduced to 25p within a week of them flopping.

 

Sadly I believe Asda or Tesco accounts for the biggest record sales in Elgin now.

I grew up in Elgin in Scotland. When I started buying records I used to generally go to Boots, then Woolies as they had more up to date singles (the whole top 40 on 7"!) and then finally to the town's only dedicated record shop 'Sound and Vision'. This was the best place to get singles which didn't chart as they would be reduced to 25p within a week of them flopping.

 

There used to be an old dusty newsagent that was situated just a few stores down from ‘Liptons’ in the village where used to live. It was the kind that sold toys, random ‘brick-a-brack’ and almost every kind of sweet in those large jars stacked at the back where cigarettes would now be kept. The store would be also be where I would stock up on 7 inches, as all the ex-chart releases would end up in a twirling display rack at very cheap prices. I think all these records may have been for the purposes of jukeboxes or mobile DJ units, as all had to have that special black adaptor squeezed into the middle to make up for the fact that the record had an extra large hole.

 

After that I remember that I used to go to ‘Woolworths’ in Altrincham quite regularly. These were the days when you could always find something interesting in their ‘bargain bin’ and a 7 inch single might end up being discounted to 10p (for example, my ‘Oakland Stroke’ single by ‘Tony! Toni! Toné’). In addition to being the place to find loads of great records cheap, the lady behind the counter would always save me the ‘Gallup’ charts run-down display from each week, which I would then take home to stick back together as one page of 1980s ‘Music Week’.

 

Another great record store to go looking for discounted stuff was ‘Powercuts’ in Manchester. This store was in the basement of an old mill just set back from ‘Oxford Road’ not far up the road from the ‘Cornerhouse’ cinema. This store was great as you could buy loads of American imports for 29p on vinyl and 49p on CD. You knew they were American imports as all the CDs came in those large cardboard boxes, about twice the height of the regular CD cases that wasted a lot of packaging in the early 1990s. All the records had a ‘click’ missing from the covers, but that did not bother you when you were buying so cheaply.