News

Indie Record Stores Learn to Change with the Times

1:38 p.m. · July 29, 2009 · by Tony Sclafani

Over at Techdirt, there's an interesting account of how independent record stores are learning to adapt to the changing economic landscape. Since the big retailers like Tower and Virgin are gone, and Best Buy and the like treat their music sections like it's an unwanted stepchild, the indie stores are morphing into destination places for people who, you know, really like music.

"Over the years, we've seen more and more and more stories of smaller record stores learning to adapt," they explain.

The new morsel of news was sent in by one Dave W and looks at a bunch of shops in the UK "that appear to have realized that they need to completely change -- including one that's really focused on being a destination for people to hang out and buy coffee... while hearing music (often live music)."

They may not be selling as many CDs, in other words, but they're making up for it by hawking other music-related products. You'll still have to deal with clerks like the ones in the movie "High Fidelity," but that's half the fun.