Front page of NME 21/0402012

Happy Record Store Day! It’s the day when the nation celebrates what’s left of its network of independent record retailers. Taking place on Saturday 21 April,  there’s lots to get involved with if there is a shop in your area. Participating stores will be hosting live music events and selling limited vinyl editions of reocrdings by groups such as The Arctic Monkeys, The Subways and Graham Coxon. This week’s edition of NME is dedicated to the event and lists all the shops taking part and what’s going on.

Over the past twenty years the independent record store has all but disappeared from our high streets. In fact there are are hardly any high street music retailers with only HMV remaining as the major store in many shopping centres.

In the Midlands you have to travel to Malvern or Cheltenham to join in the event. It’s pretty shocking to see that there is nowhere in Birmingham included in the promotion.

The decline happened bit by bit with the growth of shopping malls and huge corporations like Virgin, HMV and Our Price gradually stepping in and being able to offer better prices than the smaller shops.  Tax- doging online setups such as Amazon and Play took much of their business away, and don’t forget the supermarkets such as Tesco and Sainsbury’s selling albums like Pearl Jam’s Ten amongst the baby food for £5 a go.

Illegal downloading chipped away a little bit more, finally Apple stepped in with ITunes, and suddenly you didn’t need to even leave the house to find your latest favourite band.

Stourbridge had an independent record store called Stourbridge Records in a little street behind the Sixth Form college and I remember going in there to buy some limited edition Red Hot Chili Peppers and Blind Melon 12″ picture disks. Sadly I don’t even know when it closed. Picture disks were a bit silly and when would you even look at them anyway; mine are stashed on a shelf with all our other records. But it did appeal to my sense of excitement about new releases and they looked very pretty. I also remember popping into Magpie Records in Halesowen and picking up new releases on my way home from school. I guess someone’s first download from ITunes just won’t have that same kind of special memory and there won’t be any old shops that they’ll walk past now converted into Charity shops or just boarded up that will pull on the heartstrings and remind them of a song they once loved.

I was never the kind of person who saved up all my lunch money for new singles or that hung around thumbing through the albums on a Saturday afternoon but I do have a sense of nostalgia about how music was available in the past and I think young people now will miss out on the geeky thrill of having a little collection of plastic disks. Even the loss of the album art and all the sleeve notes means being a music fan is very different now. Where will they pick up all the little stories behind the song lyrics or find out who the artist wants to acknowledge for inspiring their work…oh yes, Twitter or Facebook. But reading the notes was a bit like finding hidden treasure – lots of artists didn’t bother writing much so you were always pleasantly surprised when they did.

Another bonus of the record shop was that as a teenage girl you knew they were sort of cool and perhaps you might find cool people in there. Nipping in just on the off chance you might see someone you fancy in there looking at the Oasis album was part of a Saturday trip into town. You could also find posters advertising good club nights and gigs. I know that’s all done on-line now everything seems so scheduled nowadays doesn’t it? A nice illuminous orange or yellow poster with black marker pen was the perfect way of finding out about things to do on your nights out.

Having said all this, like most people, I don’t have time to seek out independent shops and if I hear something on the radio I like I will almost certainly download it from ITunes. It’s up to the students and people with a bit of time one their hands to keep the remaining record shops we have open. Perhaps I’ll try a bit harder to support the cause and if I see one I’ll go in and buy something just for old time’s sake.