Whether they attracted Tommy Dorsey fans in the 1940s, Elvis Presley buffs in the 1950s or Nirvana devotees in the 1990s, record stores have long served up musical inspiration to the masses. In my opinion, a scene from the 1994 movie, Empire Records, a film about a day in the life of angst-riddled, music-store employees, embodies this passion. Against the backdrop of Dire Strait’s rendition of the song “Romeo and Juliet,” audiophiles from very different walks of life search for and sample divergent types of music, yet experience a similar bliss.
First, the mom-and-pop music shop encountered fierce competition from such industry titans as Tower Records and Sam Goody. Now, the entire music-store industry fights for its own existence against iTunes and other downloadable-music formats. They’ve adapted by introducing such offerings as DVDs, live-music performance or comic-book sections. However, they continually fight an uphill battle.
In 2007, a group of retail-music store owners decreed every third Saturday in April would be observed as Record Store Day to promote the approximately 700 independent, locally owned music vendors across the U.S. In honor of the occasion, I’ve accumulated this gallery of unique, music-store signage that reminds us that purchasing vinyl or CDs that stir your soul isn’t a mere transaction. It’s an experience.