Best CD & LP stores in San Francisco/Bay Area?

For classical, in addition to Rasputin and Amoeba, try A Musical Offering in Berkeley.

 

I'm going to be in the Menlo Park/Palo Alto area for business next week, any recommends for CD shops to visit near there? I see a Rasputins in MV. Probably the furthest I'd be able to travel to another location would be around SJC. Thanks

 

If SJ is the furthest you want to go to, I would add Streetlight Records in SJ. Rasputins in SF is ok, I suspect the MV one could be ok as well.

 

And if you go to SJ Streetlight, Rasputins SJ location is only a couple blocks down the road from there.

 

I'm in San Francisco now on the holidays and have managed to visit several of the area record stores. I went looking for used jazz, metal, indie, and to fill in some gaps in my rock collection. Overall, I found high prices and used sections that had been picked through six ways to Sunday so I didn't end up buying much. Here is what I found:

Amoeba Berkeley: Pretty good selection, but nothing really special. They have some good stuff up on the walls for $50+ per album, which I am not paying. I found a couple of jazz albums and a used copy of the Albert Ayler Holy Ghost CD box set that I picked up. Most of the rock had been picked through but they did have a decent selection of new albums. Friendly staff. Nothing special, however.

Rasputin Berkeley: Great CD selection and decent vinyl selection. Most of the good stuff had been picked through, however. Store was a bit of a disorganized mess with tons of albums in the "A," "B," etc. sections. I don't have time to go through 200 albums in each general letter section just to find one (or in most cases, zero) albums in which I am interested. Nothing special.

Aquarius Records: Outstanding, outstanding store. Small place, but what was there was selected well. Great CD selection of black metal, ambient, avant-garde and experimental music. No jazz, however. Only a handful of LPs, but a good selection. Mostly new albums. Would definitely return to see what else they have in stock. The best of all of the places that I visited; narrow stylistic range but plenty of depth.

Originals Vinyl: Hole in the wall shop in a hipster ghetto in the Mission. Decent selection, especially of classic rock, but nothing really special. The owners clearly don't accept just anything that comes into the store so they have a higher than average ratio of interesting things vs. garbage. You pay for it, however, as the prices were the same as top dollar on ebay. Very small jazz selection and no metal. Store was OK, nothing special.

1-2-3-4 Go! Records: Great selection of new albums, not so many used records. Excellent selection of new indie records and had a bunch of good new metal records as well. Good store overall if you are looking for new albums, but I can get those on the internet.

 

I have been meaning to update this thread that the Streetlight Records on Market Street closed and the space is gutted. Not sure what the backstory is, I just was walking by on the way to dinner a few months ago and saw the space empty. Not that it compared to the Bascom Streetlight, but it was close to my house.