Reposting this from the What Are You Reading ? thread.
Interesting take on the current state of record labels.
https://medium.com/@tunesandtales/the-record-label-crisis-37842a67be24
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It was that piece and this one he also did which prompted me to start the thread. The below says vinyl sales are up (but probably driven by heritage buying and people buying not to play a record but to own an artefact) and you can see why smaller physical record shops with a large number of new releases must be struggling.
https://medium.com/@tunesandtales/where-next-for-vinyl-9870b6afe21a
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Not really been following this threadā¦ reading about shops closing down sounded depressingā¦ but a new record shop has just opened in Deptford (SE London) https://upsidedownrecords.co.uk/
ā¦. Hope it lasts long enough for me to have a look
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I guess record shops (and buying records) is subject to the same pressures as felt everywhere else in the current cost of living crisis. Personally, as iāve stated elsewhere on this forum, i have only bought 1 brand new, sealed record this year. I just canāt afford it at the moment.
Me and the wife have just had a few days away seeing family and friends in Cornwall, while there i did have a look in a couple of shops in Falmouth and Truro. Both shops were a combination of used and new, and i was staggered at how expensive they were. I know they have ever increasing overheads, and need to make a living, but Ā£45 for a Taylor Swift album??? Used records that i probably would have seen for a fiver years ago now seemed to be Ā£15-20 a time (who would honestly pay that for Dire Straits- Brothers In Arms?). Did think that in a back street shop in a small town (Liskeard) there might have been cheap gems waiting to be mined, but not the case. Very much priced as per Discogs guidelines, and interestingly, the owner told me that dealers from āup the lineā (her expression) regularly descend on the place and offer 40-50% of the advertised price in return for bulk buying.
My conclusion is, yes, the āvinyl revivalā is probably fizzling out. Many reasons, overheads, the state of the economy, a little bit of greed and also the hard truth that if it is a fad or fashion, then eventually it just goes out of fashion again.
See also the ācraft beerā thing with plentiful micro breweries under railway arches closing down, and many of them also being acquired by major brewers and merged into there large operations.
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Local town to us, was that in Bay Tree Hill? Town is dying sadly, so many empty shops. Never found anything tempting or interesting record wise, still look occasionally.
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Had a mooch in HMV yesterday. Racks and racks of utter dross at ridiculous prices. Literally tons of the stuff.
ā33rd Anniversary, digitally remastered, lacquer cut by Cilla Black, lenticular sleeve, 180g, limited to 50ā. Naturally I had to buy it.
Iām all for the revival dying out tbh. Letās get back to sensible prices, and fewer scalpers.
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Was called āDunamisā (worryingly, also the name of some weird branch of Christianity) and is on Fore Street. Predominately a shop selling some way out there religious books and artifacts, but a dozen or so crates of records in the back which i noticed when peering in the window (also had loads of uncategorised stuff upstairs away from the public bit of the of shop, which the woman behind the counter let me dig through). Apparently her husband used to have a shop in Bristol, so is selling off the remaining stock in here, and some of his personal collection is also mixed in with it. . It is mostly 70ās rock, some reggae a bit of funk/soul/disco and many crates of film soundtracks. A few crates of house/techno and hip hop upstairs along with loads of gospel stuffā¦ All in really good condition, but pretty expensive and nothing really took my fancy. Killed an hour or so though.
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ā¦also some people just donāt deserve it!
Whiny tw*t!
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Gotcha, not ventured in there for ages, saved me the trouble, last time she said I couldnāt go in as Iād just bought a Pasty.
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Iāve just seen Joel from QV has posted about a new shop in Soho connected to ROVR.
Will also have coffee and other things.
Looks like they have second hand from the photos.
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Yeah, mostly second hand in the first instance but they are building up new stock. Looks impressive!
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I popped in today, lots of really good pieces. Fairly priced (though Iām not an expert).
The kind of records you donāt just run across, and so if you factor no postage costs, it feels on point.
Got Wally Badarou Echoes LP & Zenamon 12ā.
Didnāt think Wally was for me until I heard the album at a Classic Album session with Cosmo earlier this year - where I met @padsyms in person!
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Yes! That was a great session. (Even if I did nod off briefly when they turned the lights down 
)
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I also popped into ROVR today, I was very impressed!
I didnāt buy any records but did grab a coffee which was very good!
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