The closest thing you’ll ever find to a real-life Empire Records, West Hollywood’s Amoeba Music is the Hercules of all music shops. It weighs in at 24,000 sq ft and boasts more than 100,000 CDs, records and DVDs across its myriad racks – muscle enough to make it the world’s largest independent record store (with outposts in San Francisco and Berkeley in California, too). They’re curating a Red Bull Sound Select gig, featuring LA punkers Fidlar, on February 27.
Rough Trade, London
Rough Trade isn’t so much an institution as part of the London music scene’s DNA. The Ladbroke Grove outpost has been there since 1976 and is everything a legendary record shop should be: cramped, colourful and overflowing with records you never knew you wanted but can’t resist buying. Its younger and bigger Shoreditch sister, Rough Trade East, meanwhile, has helped redefine the record store’s future – it’s spacious, stocked according to niche genres and a must-attend gig space for bands passing through. The chain’s newly opened Brooklyn branch, in a former HBO prop warehouse, capitalises on this model and is now New York’s largest record shop.
Spacehall looks exactly like you’d imagine a record shop in Berlin to look like: minimal, industrial and coolly chic. It’s the first port of call for the city’s droves of discerning DJs who flock to four cavernous floors of vinyl spanning all shades of electronic music. It's closely followed by Hard Wax, which has been feeding Berlin’s electronic scene white labels since 1989.
Submerge Records, Detroit
There are some record stores favoured for their inventive environs, others for their sheer size and volume of stock. Others are where legends have come to bear. Submerge has lived at various addresses in Motor City but was – and still is – a vital focus for the Detroit techno scene. Its infamous shop at 2030 Grand River boasted a wall of legendary signatures and the shop’s latest incarnation, at 3000 East Grand Blvd, has extended that idea into a full-blown Detroit techno museum on the first floor.
Mazeeka Samir Fouad, Cairo
And the prize for quirkiest record shop goes to… This treasure trove looks like something out of The Mummy, stocking enormous vintage gramophones, old valve radios, 1950s’ rock ’n’ roll posters and thousands of dusty western and Egyptian records from the last century.
The Argentinian capital is brimming with amazing spots for crate diggers. Jazz aficionados, however, head to Minton’s. Since it opened in 1993, it’s become a place for the genre’s musicians, artists and writers to meet and discuss their love of noodling jams. The record shop’s own-brand of Minton’s Malbec wine helps fuel the conversation, no doubt.
Third Man Records, Nashville
Best known as Jack White’s blues and garage rock-oriented label, the Third Man camp opened a physical base in 2009 through which to spread their message that “your turntable’s not dead”. Its signature lightning flashes adorn its wax-only releases, from limited-edition White Stripes re-presses to forgotten country bands and rising Tennessee acts. The bright yellow walls encompass not just a record shop but a performance space, photo studio, screening room and analogue recording booth, too.
Tower Records, Tokyo
Similarly monolithic in size, Tower Records is the last remaining outpost of the Californian chain and is considered the best stocked in Japan. Quite literally a tower of records, the store has nine floors of new and back-catalogue gems. A revamp in 2012 introduced a café and a basement micro-club space, Dommune, which live streams talks and DJ sets.
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