Need to find a way to kill some time? Looking for a new hobby? Record stores are a great place to spend hours browsing through the racks of new and used vinyl. Collecting vinyl records has become a hipster fad and musicians are starting to record on them again. In a city full of so much music, where are the best places to buy new and used records in Philadelphia? City Walker has a few recommendations of where you should look.
Creep Records
A record store and studio that offers new and used vinyl. They also stock glass pipes and other accessories. The customer service is nothing to brag about, they have a reputation of ignoring customers who walk in. The vinyl is a little over priced and definitely more than you will pay online, but there is a good selection of a wide variety of genres. It is a fun place to waste some time browsing.
Creep Records
Milkcrate Cafe
Records, coffee and pancakes? What more do you need on a Saturday! Open seven days a week, with blueberry pancake breakfast on Saturday morning. The records hanging on the wall give it a fun vibe to relax and listen to music. The menu is really creative, the Chocolate Elvis, and the Bagella Fitzgerald are both really good options.
Milkcrate Cafe
Long in the Tooth
A rustic indie record store with a great selection. The owner’s conversations sound like they are right out of an episode of “Always Sunny in Philadelphia” which is really entertaining. They have some of the best prices in the city for a brick and mortar shop, and the store is well organized and categorized.They have a good selection of used books and dvds as well in case you go with friends who don’t collect vinyl.
Long in the Tooth
In a technological age, music is recorded in digital formats and and shared around the internet. But does the simple dissemination of new songs make the experience of listening to them better? Do expensive Beats headphones and listening to music on the go allow the listener to truly understand the music? It may be convenient to use headphone and mobile mp3 files to listen to music but the quality is easily diminished from the live recording session.
It is argued that vinyl is the closest recorded music will ever sound to a live show. There is no question that sitting in on a jazz jam is very different than listening to it on a CD or the radio. The advancements in technology have allowed music to become easier and less expensive to record meaning more people are recording and there is more music being circulated. Now that there is more music, people are regaining interest in listening to music with high quality sound. While the uptick in collecting vinyl may be a passing fad, for now it is bringing back the pass time of digging through bins of records.