The Life, Death, and Afterlife of the Record Store: A Global History

Record stores were once vital conduits to new music, supporting local economic enterprises and fostering social mobility. This book explores their significance to individuals, communities, musical genres, and society, examining their role in shaping social practices, aesthetic tastes, and ideologies. It collects stories and memories from women-owned and independent record stores, Reggae record shops, and Rough Trade in Paris, highlighting a neglected personal history of many lives.

Format: Hardback
Length: 296 pages
Publication date: 13 July 2023
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

Record stores have long been conduits to new music, often bypassing the corporate music industry in ways that are now more easily accomplished via the Internet. These stores championed the most local of economic enterprises, allowing social mobility to well up from them in unexpected ways. Record stores speak volumes about our relationship to shopping, capitalism, and art. This book takes a comprehensive look at what individual record stores meant to individual people, but also what they meant to communities, musical genres, and society in general. What was their role in shaping social practices, aesthetic tastes, and, loosely put, ideologies? From women-owned and independent record stores to Reggae record shops in London to Rough Trade in Paris, this book takes on a global and interdisciplinary approach to evaluating record stores. It collects stories and memories, and facts about a variety of local stores that not only re-center the record store as a marketplace of ideas but also explore and celebrate a neglected personal history of many lives.

Record stores have long been conduits to new music, often bypassing the corporate music industry in ways that are now more easily accomplished via the Internet. These stores championed the most local of economic enterprises, allowing social mobility to well up from them in unexpected ways. Record stores speak volumes about our relationship to shopping, capitalism, and art. This book takes a comprehensive look at what individual record stores meant to individual people, but also what they meant to communities, musical genres, and society in general. What was their role in shaping social practices, aesthetic tastes, and, loosely put, ideologies? From women-owned and independent record stores to Reggae record shops in London to Rough Trade in Paris, this book takes on a global and interdisciplinary approach to evaluating record stores. It collects stories and memories, and facts about a variety of local stores that not only re-center the record store as a marketplace of ideas but also explore and celebrate a neglected personal history of many lives.

Weight: 556g
Dimension: 159 x 237 x 22 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781501384509