Columns Music

The 6 people you meet at a record store

Record stores are a jungle. Here's a field guide.

Queen of Pop Madonna once said that music makes people come together. She’s not wrong. I mean, just look at your neighborhood record store.

Ever since vinyl made its comeback to mainstream, there’s been a noticeably steady increase in the number of people digging through the bins and crates at record stores. And while most of them are friendly and pleasant people, some characters are, for lack of a better term, sketchy.

With that in mind, we prepared a short field guide on the six people you meet at your local record store:

The Rockstars

Straight-up experts when it comes to records, these musically-inclined characters spend their time poring over the titles at the classic rock and pop sections, musing over the titles from back in the day. And while they may favor a classic Fleetwood Mac record most of the time, they aren’t audio snobs: they also love newer acts and albums and will even jam to the latest Lorde, Billie Eilish, and Sigrid tracks.

PS: These people are precious. Yes, they must be protected. Also, they tend to give sound advice regarding music. 

The Enthusiast

This guy is a constant fixture at the local record store. You can see him digging through the crates, spinning and testing discount 45s on the store’s in-house turntable, and even engaging in conversation with the store’s other customers and its clerks. Sometimes you even mistake The Enthusiast for store staff — and he’s cool with that.

The Indiana Jones

Much like Indy himself, this guy’s in constant search of some of the hobby’s holy grails: a first-state copy of The Beatles’ Yesterday And Today with the infamous “butcher” cover, a mint pressing of Nirvana’s Bleach from the re-release bundle by Sub Pop from 1992, a copy of David Bowie’s Diamond Dogs LP with the non-airbrushed cover, et cetera. Chances are, if it’s rare, The Indiana Jones already has his eyes on it, price points be damned.

The “Vinyls” Guy

Pare it’s different talaga pag naka-vinyls pare, like mas alive yung music pare. I bought these vintage daw na vinyls pala from this new IG seller pare for like 3K lang each pare. Ay what do you mean they sell those titles lang for 500 pare sure ka ba omigod.”

PS: This person can still be saved. Call the Rockstars for help.

The Audiofool

Oh, so you finally upgraded from an all-in-one suitcase player? Too bad it’s still not going to sound good for the Audiofool.  Where are the high-end 24k gold-plated cables? Where’s the nuclear-powered phono stage? Why aren’t you using tube amps? Where’s the 0.1 gram cartridge made from organic non-synthetic unobtainium? Why isn’t your stylus made from premium Wakandan vibranium? And why the hell are you buying a *gasp* a repress?

PS: Don’t take our word for it, but word on the grapevine is that the sight of a beginner’s hi-fi set can drive an Audiofool to apoplexy.

The Record Flipper

If ever you see someone snatching up all the new releases from the crates like there’s no tomorrow, chances are, you just spotted a Record Flipper AKA The Scalper in the wild. 

Long considered the bane of legitimate record stores, Record Flippers will scour record store bins for records and upon getting them home, will immediately upload them on dodgy online vending sites to lure in and rip off unsuspecting buyers with their exorbitant prices. Steer clear of this guy, everyone.

PS: The Vinyls Guy probably bought overpriced records from the Record Flipper. #RIPMoney

0 comments on “The 6 people you meet at a record store

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s

%d bloggers like this: