Record Store Quotes

#1. For decades, Billboard had to rely on record-store owners and radio stations to report the most-bought and most-played songs. Both parties lied, often because labels nudged or bribed them to plug certain records, or because store owners didn't want to promote albums they no longer had in stock.

Anonymous

#2. [Columbia House] magazines were how I found out about the punk world going on in New York. Because of what I read, at the age of 15, I hounded the local record store to order a copy of Horses [1975] for me by Patti Smith.

Michael Stipe

#3. It's a great meeting place, community center, art gallery, singles bar, music venue. The record store really covers a lot of ground.

Gary Calamar

#4. Anyone who had ever worked in a record store knew that Tuesdays were the busiest day, when the new releases hit the shelves.

Stephen Witt

#5. Other kids would take their parents to the toy store and I'd take my mom to the record store.

Daron Malakian

#6. My days of being the tardy employee at the record store gave me a cultural and musical understanding that was more unique than if I'd just listened to garbage-y pop on the radio my entire life.

Sophia Amoruso

#7. I did find some time to go to a record store and check out 'Headstrong' actually in the racks. It was pretty cool; I never thought I'd see my own CD sitting there with everyone else's. I made my Mom take lots of pics!

Ashley Tisdale

#8. Certainly, R.E.M. grew out of the Wuxtry record store in Athens, where Peter Buck was working and Michael Stipe came in to visit. And even their later manager, Bertis Downs, they all met and congregated at that record store. So I'm sure we wouldn't see those without the record store.

Gary Calamar

#9. I try to explain that to my kids - the experience of going to a record store, flipping through racks and finding that album cover that intrigues you - but my kids don't want to know about it. They download the one song on the album they like, and pay their 99 cents.

Jon Bon Jovi

#10. I worked in a record store, but I realised I didn't want that. I still wanted to pursue a career - or a life - that my songs provided for me.

Jamie Lawson

#11. You can't ask someone who is not making that kind of money to go to the record store and buy an album when someone down the street has the same record with same sound quality for $5.

Queen Latifah

#12. I grew up working at a record store and listening to vinyl. Even if it's side A and B, there's always this continuity that really turned me on about music.

Amos Lee

#13. Whether I'm doing music or I'm walking down the street or I'm in a record store buying a record or I walk into a comic store and I'm buying comics or having a drink with my friends, it's the same me.

Glenn Danzig

#14. Whenever I go to a new city, whether visiting or vacationing, I would always make that a point to get to the record store early on, just to get my bearings and see what was going on around town.

Gary Calamar

#15. I used to work in a record store. I'm kind of a record nerd.

Patrick Stump

#16. I love the classic crooners, but I got that from my mother - she worked in a record store.

Tori Amos

#17. Try this experiment: one day go in a record store and just try and guess what the music sounds like by looking at the album cover.

DJ Spooky

#18. I guess I probably took New York for granted. Growing up, playing in the street, going down to the Avenue to the record store and to the grocery store and stuff like that.

Noah Baumbach

#19. Have you never met anyone who works in a record store? There is no greater repository of unjustified arrogance in the world.

Christopher Moore

#20. I was introduced to lots of great music through my local record store. It was a place where people knew music and they knew me, and could make great suggestions and discoveries. Whether it is in the physical world or on-line, the value of a great and knowledgeable record store has not gone away

Peter Gabriel

#21. One never need leave the confines of New York to get all the greenery one wishes - I can't even enjoy a blade of grass unless I know there's a subway handy or a record store or some other sign that people do not totally regret life.

Frank O'Hara

#22. When I was growing up in the early '70s and really getting into music, waiting outside the record store for that 45, waiting for a single from The Dead, The Clash, David Bowie, or T-Rex or something to be there. There was something about that that was so special.

Dave Gahan

#23. One of the first things I picked up when I was very, very young out of a record store was work from Peter Saville - the early things he used to do for Factory Records.

Raf Simons

#24. The record store was a place of escape. It was a library and a clubhouse - Cameron Crowe quoted

Gary Calamar

#25. There's a vast fraternity of record collectors, and the record store was their hub. There was not a lot of information on these groups or the labels so you'd gather [there] and it would be like a library. - Lenny Kaye quoted

Gary Calamar

#26. I miss the experience of walking into a record store and find old stuff without expecting to.

Mark Hoppus

#27. I went to a record store and asked for 50 cent. They kicked me out for pan-handling.

Jay London

#28. Even as a kid, if I would come across something cool in the record store, that would be how I found out about bands. It's kind of the same way these days. In a way even less because there are no record stores to go to anymore.

Scott Ian

#29. I became Iggy because I had a sadistic boss at a record store. I'd been in a band called the Iguanas. And when this boss wanted to embarrass and demean me, he'd say, 'Iggy, get me a coffee, light.'

Iggy Pop

#30. There's nothing as glamorous to me as a record store.

Paul McCartney

#31. I have watched independent record stores evaporate all over America and Europe. That's why I go into as many as I can and buy records whenever possible. If we lose the independent record store, we lose big. Every time you buy your records at one of these places, it's a blow to the empire.

Henry Rollins

#32. I always tell the girls never take it seriously, if you never take it seriously you never get hurt, if you never get hurt you always have fun, and if you ever get lonely just go to the record store and visit your friends.

Cameron Crowe

#33. I don't think radio is selling records like they used to. They'd hawk the song and hawk the artist and you'd get so excited, you'd stop your car and go into the nearest record store.

Herb Alpert

#34. When I was a kid, I would go to the record store, where there was a bin of things they didn't know quite how to classify. Those were my choices. That's where you would find Captain Beefheart or an early electronic album.

Mark Mothersbaugh

#35. A lot of people see a Nissan ad and they see a finished product in a record store or on iTunes and that's the face of the band.

Patrick Carney

#36. I love iTunes as much as anybody. It's very convenient and very easy. But there is nothing like the vibe that you get when you walk into a record store. And I think a lot of people are still thrilled to spend a half hour there and go through the bins and make some purchases.

Gary Calamar

#37. We are drowning in a sea of Myspace, blather, and too much information. Music is everywhere and nowhere. The independent record store is the solution, a place staffed by friendly (or not) people who are actually paid to weed through this crap and help you find the good stuff.

Dean Wareham

#38. Immersing yourself in the environment of a real record store where music is celebrated and cherished adds real value to the experience of buying music. In some ways, that retail experience is as important as the music.

John Mellencamp

#39. I went to a record store, they said they specialized in hard-to-find records. NOTHING WAS ALPHABETIZED!

Mitch Hedberg

#40. I can't even enjoy a blade of grass unless I know there's a subway handy, or a record store or some other sign that people do not totally regret life. It's more important to confirm the least sincere. The clouds get enough attention as it is ...

Frank O'Hara

#41. I always knew I'd be in music in some sort of capacity. I didn't know if I'd be successful at it, but I knew I'd be doing something in it. Maybe get a job in a record store. Maybe even play in a band. I never got into this to be a star.

Bryan Adams

#42. As an experience, as a listener, for me, I miss the record store. I miss going in and knowing the guy at the counter and being like, "Hey," knowing that he was going to hate the record I put on the counter, and still buying it. That takes some guts.

Amos Lee

#43. My advice is, don't spend money on therapy.
Spend it in a record store.

Wim Wenders

#44. I definitely didn't have a lot of money. I had been fired from a record store. I was just trying to get by. I was on unemployment. I didn't have anything going full-time.

Avey Tare

#45. The idea of, 'The journey is the destination' is put into action by browsing in an indie record store. Besides, a human being is a much better guide than a 'More Like This' link on the internet.

Patton Oswalt

#46. We carried bottled water and day packs and cameras, except for Fred, who said he didn't believe in taking photographs; he planned to store his memories in his head, an idea I found incomprehensibly radical. My impulse to record was almost on par with my impulse to travel

Elisabeth Eaves

#47. I needed a way to have the platter continuously spinning while I'm moving the record back and forth. I went to a fabric store. When I touched this hairy stuff - felt - I found it. I rubbed spray starch on both sides and ironed it until it became a stiff wafer. After that, I was able to stop time.

Grandmaster Flash

#48. Dante didn't work out, and then we found Ryan. He worked at a comic, record and toy store in Fremont.

Brody Armstrong

#49. Vinyl survived, we managed not to kill it. Knowing that you've taken part in this fight ... You can't imagine the happiness it brings. Every time I see a kid going out of the store with a vinyl record under the arms, my heart beats faster. Music should only be this. An intense emotion.

Jack White

#50. Only a certain number of people go to a store over the period of a year. When a person sees my record on the shelf, it eliminates someone else's record from being sold. It's about continuing to try to find new ways to sell records.

Roy Ayers

#51. The label doesn't do anything but put your record in the store, that's all they do. And tell you, you don't have a single ... and tell you, it's not gonna sell ... that's what the label does.

Ray Lamontagne

#52. Whether they run a record company or a grocery store, every boss will tell you you're in big trouble if you're borrowing more than you can ever afford to pay back. Delaying the pain for future generations is suicidal. We've got to start getting the deficit down right now, not next year.

Simon Cowell

#53. I applied at Tower Records on Sunset Boulevard after my band broke up. I really wanted to work there because it involved the love of my life, music. It was also located on the world famous Sunset Strip, a place I dreamed of going to ever since I was a teenager in the 80's to become a rock star.

K.D. Sanders

#54. I usually disliked whatever was being played on a music store's speakers. It spoiled the pleasure of thinking about other music. Record shops, I felt, should be silent spaces; there, more than anywhere else, the mind needed to be clear.

Teju Cole

#55. There is a new codeword going round school. DFS. It means 'desperate for sex.' It sounds like you are talking about the furniture shop. For the record, I'm certainly DFS. In fact I am permanently shopping in DFS with no hope of getting out of the store.

Rae Earl

#56. A track on iTunes costs next to zero to store on Apple's server, and next to zero to transmit to my computer. Whatever it cost the record company to produce (in terms of artist fees and marketing costs) it costs me 99p simply because it's unlawful to copy it for free. The

Paul Mason