It's been a little more than a week since the last Virgin Megastore closed down in Manhattan. In the final weeks, the store had unprecedented discounts on vinyl, CDs and movies. And suddenly, all the New Yorkers who had stopped going to Virgin because of high prices were back roaming the isles. While I was there, several customers kept glancing at their iPods, trying to figure out which of the downloaded bands on there were worth buying on hard-copy. Others hovered around the vinyl section, wondering whether now was the time to start a collection.New York City is meant to be the promised land for great record stores, a place where you can find obscure oddities and hidden gems. No other city, perhaps with the exception of San Francisco, offers a comparable selection. And yet, in recent years, the big stores have shut their doors one by one. For anyone who has lived in Manhattan for more than a couple years, the last days of Virgin Records felt eerily familiar. It was just a few years ago when the entire Tower Records chain shut down.
We have now reached a point where no chain store, it seems, can exist on selling CD's and DVD's alone. Instead, the ones that continue to be successful are stores like J&R and Best Buy, which sells lots of electronics, and Wal Mart, which sells lots of everything else. Yet, this makes New York City all the more valuable thanks to its large number of small independent record stores. Whether you're a longtime collector looking for new places to find that rare record, or a new buyer who just purchased your first CD in the dying days of Virgin, here is the list of five of our favorite stores left in NYC:
1) Bleecker Street Records - This Greenwich Village shop is a staple for record collectors. It offers used and new CDs upstairs and an excellent collection of classic vinyl and posters downstairs. The used CD's can run for as little as $4, but for the most part, don't come here looking for cheap buys. This is where you go when you have to own a record and you can't find it anywhere else.
2) Sound Fix - If you're looking for new releases from Indie bands like Grizzly Bear and Bon Iver on vinyl or CD, this is the place to go. On top of a nice selection of music, this store is connected to a sweet bar in the back. Buy a record, grab a Guinness and stay for any one of the free performances they host.
3) Turntable Lab - This East Village store ranks near the top of most lists of the best record stores in America. It offers a great selection of DJ equipment and Hip Hop music. But the store is much more diverse than that. From a recent review of the store: "[H]ere you'll find everything like techno, house, dubstep, roots + dub, nujazz, new disco, electro rock, rave, new wave, Miami bass + electro, Baltimore electronic, Ghettotech bass, break beats, cosmic, Italian disco, dance, and lots of very underground hip-hop." How can you beat that?
4) Generation Records - This store bills itself as the best destination for "obscure, outrageous or just plain weird" records, and they certainly are not far off. It is only a few blocks away from Bleecker Street Records. So, after you've satisfied your craving for old folk music there, head over to this shop for all your punk and heavy metal needs.
5) Other Music - It's a little lonelier now that the Tower Records in Greenwich Village has closed. It used to be possible to search through the racks at Tower for all your mainstream needs and then stroll down the block to Other Music to find records from all those bands that were too cool for Tower. Still, this is the place to go to find out about all the weird bands you never hear about anywhere else. Just try not to be too embarrassed if the only band you recognize there is Radiohead.
Did we miss one of your favorites? Leave us a comment here or e-mail us your responses at losersguidenyc@gmail.com
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