Remembering Record Stores

Remember the concept of record stores? It seems most people have forgotten what it's like to flip through vinyl records or stare at walls of cassette tapes and browsing the CD long boxes during the time they were placed near the registers due to their higher value. I love a good record shop...before digital downloads, FYE, amazon and B&N overthrew the market we had Record Bar, Turtles, Peaches, Coconuts and the Mecca...TOWER RECORDS. 

During my younger years, my sister and I were only exposed to the latest hits via WABB 97.5 or a vinyl 45 from TG&Y or K-Mart. Our full length albums were usually whatever was on clearance or those wonderful K-Tel collections jam packed with the shorter than edited radio versions. Once in a while, my mom would drive my sister and I to the mall but our mall visit came with strings attached...LIMITED TIME. My sister would cover the metal and rap (or what they called rap back in the 80s), pop/rock and new releases quicker than anyone I'd ever met. Even before she had an actual job, my sister also always managed to have a little cash to buy a tape. I went for the 12" singles and the M (for Madonna) section of pop/rock and hope my mom would buy something for me before she dragged us down to JC Penny's if we were at University Mall or Montgomery Wards if we were fortunate enough to be at Cordova Mall. Vinyl became obsolete toward the end of my elementary school years but I preferred snap crackle pop over the cheap tape decks and players we had eating or mangling my favorite tunes.

Record stores have definitely changed over the years for sure. There was a time went you walked in and the staff consisted of 5 highly knowledgeable sales people and 2 managers that were just as knowledgeable at any given time, now you are lucky to find 2 sales people anytime and most of the knowledge is of current top 40 or whatever they are performing on American Idol. I walked into FYE a few weeks ago and a generic rap track was blasting from the speakers, I asked the sales guy if they had "Love Never Dies" on CD and he asked "Who it by?" assuming it was just a song. When I worked in music stores I knew what all the new releases were several weeks before their release dates and would've known that it was not a group but a cast recording. Fortunately, there are a few old timers that know they have a corner in the market for vinyl freaks like me. Here in Atlanta, we have Fantasyland Records, the only store that I make sure I'm wearing comfortable shoes to shop. The selection rivals 4 record superstores in the space equal to a mall store. My days are Fantasyland are usually all day affairs. Breakfast at Einstein Brothers, flipping through vinyl, lunch at McDonalds, flipping through more vinyl...Then off to meet Terry and we're on our way home. There really is something special about the feel and sound of vinyl that totally rocks my world and no matter how many CDs I collect, I usually end up with the vinyl version spinning on my turntable if by any chance I can get my hands on it.