I live in the New England area, and there used to be several music stores that my friends and I would frequent. Most of them were family-owned (it seemed), and had a really great selection of harder-to-find CDs, sometimes bootlegs, etc. It seems though that in the past 10 years everything's been swallowed up by FYE, even Newbury Comics now charges $17 a CD and any band that's broken up gets whisked away from the racks. It's really depressing to have almost no choice where people buy their music anymore, and they wonder why pirating is so rampant.

Also as a side question, don't I recall a few years ago the RIAA got sued by "the people" and lost on a CD price-fixing case? Wasn't that supposed to lower prices? Why am I now seeing stuff out there for $16-20 a pop?

Amoeba in Hollywood is where I do most of my search-shopping, when I'm up there. There's also a place called Lou's my friend loves, but I haven't been yet.

Mr. Cheapo, located in Commack, NY. I love this place, I go there all the time to get harder to find cds and dvds. They also usually get new releases of popular bands the Friday before it is released, so I got a couple of new cds that way.

Zia in Phoenix and Las Vegas is pretty good. I love Amoeba.

I lived around the corner from the original Amoeba Records in Berkeley, and that place and Rasputin a few doors down got most of my student loan overage.

Record Time
Car City Records
Memories & Melodies

There's a store in Burlington, Vermont called Pure Pop Records.

Their web page is http://purepoponline.com/

Lou's Records in Encinitas? Nice, small store but selection is nowhere near Amoeba's.

I could seriously spend hours of my life in there just searching through stuff for no real reason.

I also go to Amoeba. They don't sell bootlegs, though. When I was in college I went to a place in Greensboro, NC that sold new releases the moment they got them in (as opposed to waiting for any street dates) and plenty of bootlegs, but they charged an arm and a leg for everything.

There's one place near us, called "Slick Disk", which isn't very impressive at all. There's also Street Corner Music, which mostly deals in vinyl, which is so-so. The only other place I know of remotely close is Dearborn Music, which has two locations, and not very good prices on used CDs. I remember when I lived out in PA there were like 15 music stores to choose from. Now there's a few FYE's, and the "big box" stores, and that's it.

Plan 9 (started here in Richmond, but later expanded to 10 locations) is a great store. Their prices are a bit high, but they have a great selection. Plus, they seem to be one of the few places around here that sells used CDs, albums, and DVDs.

Just about every single independent store in Atlanta that was here 15 years ago is still open. I believe Criminal Records is flourishing because they much more than music.

Yeah!

You know, even amazon's been charging full retail for a lot of CDs recently, even though they have decent discounts on most dvds. What is it that makes CDs (outside of big-name new releases) impervious to discounts?

Lou's is great, but for some reason (different buyers?) they just don't stock the bands/CDs that you would've expected to find there years ago. It used to be you could read a review of something, then run to the store to buy it. Now you can't find it there and you have to special order it.

My tastes are pretty obscure, but Lou's used to be great at carrying the more obscure stuff. A few years ago when the first Turbonegro ("Turbonegro: The Move") DVD came out, that was something they would've automatically had in stock. It had to be special ordered.

Yep, that's the place. He's into very obscure stuff so that's probably why he is such a big fan. For my money Amoeba is where it's at. Lots of great selection and tons of hidden gems.

Atomic Records in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

http://www.atomic-records.com/

Shake It Records in Cincinnati, less than a mile from my house.

Lou's in Encinitas USED to be one of the best around. Their inventory was really, really good - it was a rare occasion that you wanted something and they didn't stock it.

They're still pretty good, but they aren't what they used to be.

My old store was pretty cool (Vista Records and Tapes, Vista CA), but the owner moved it to a bad location (cheap rent), and the lack of traffic killed it. We stocked a pretty good number of import CD's (titles not available domestically), and had a decent used inventory to go along with a fairly good new CD inventory. Good times....good times.

There used to be a REALLY cool store called Middle Earth in Downey, but I don't think it's there anymore. I knew the owner - nice guy. They stocked a lot of imports, and had a pretty good used inventory - very similar to Lou's, but with a nicer staff.