50 Best Record Shops in America — Episode 5
Record shops were a dying breed for two decades. A precious few shopkeepers kept the faith, thankfully. The late 1990s, the advent of digital downloads the graffiti was on the wall, whispers of the fate of brick-and-mortar record stores chipped away. What caused further erosion, the nascent online retail business. Now a raging juggernaut, internet retailers, invisible. Big box styled warehouses anonymously house all things retail, paper clips to outhouse sheds, somehow the record shop has defied the odds, a David in the realm of Goliath. Then a slow creeping wave ushered in a revitalized live in-person record store shopping experience became en vogue again.
The expunging of old and tired chain record retailers appears to be an equivalent to a controlled burn in a forest, allowing the independent purveyors to re-seed the revitalized record shop landscape. The mall-centric chains with the same boring theme repeated in hundreds of outlets across the country have succumbed. Their big budget, narrow margin business plans are shredded. A small miracle.
This episode, number five, rides into the live music capital of the world, and the capital of the lone star state, Austin, TX. Be on the lookout for murals and statutes celebrating Willie Nelson, the city’s musical ambassador. The home of the world-renowned South by Southwest (SXSW) festival has…
