Vinyls went out of fashion for a couple of decades with the arrival of CDs and streaming, but since the mid-noughties, record sales have actually gone up every single year. No wonder – what’s a more enjoyable way to spend an afternoon than by sifting through albums in a funky little record shop? Nothing, that’s what.
Everyone has their fave, but did yours make the new Financial Times hotlist of the best record stores in the world? The publication has called on its writers and editors to name their go-to spots for vinyl hunting, and there are some great little stores on the list.
Included is Red Eye Records, a shop in Sydney that has been selling vinyls since 1981. According to the Financial Times, its ‘blood-red walls are plastered with heritage tour posters and expensive rarities’ and ‘a single bloodshot eye stares at the buses that stop outside’.
Head to Barcelona City Records if you’re after some classic Latin Music, as it’s apparently the best place to do so, and if you’re after something unusual, have a go at wading through the quarter of a million records on offer at Uptown Vinyl in Lincolnshire.
Dizonord in Paris, Andra Jazz in Stockholm and Ooh Aah Records in Copenhagen are some of the inclusions for Europe, and Jazz Record Centre in New York and Amoeba Music in Berkeley are some spotlighted in the US.
There were also 18 British record shops included, such as Rough Trade, Third Man Records and Sounds of the Universe in London, Tribe Records and Vinyl Whistle in Leeds plus locations in Oxford, Edinburgh and Wales – read more about those here.
To view the full, comprehensive list, you can do so on the Financial Times website.
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