10 Best Record Stores In The USA

So true! I was floored by the prices in Peaches. I was there about 2 years ago and they had a new/sealed copy of the '92 Pink Floyd Shine On box for NINE...HUNDRED...$s! I mean c'mon... I ended up finding a VG++ copy in a Tennessee flea market the following year for about $80 (if memory serves). I still think about Peaches every time I look at that box. Just nuts.

 

Makes you think it's really a front for laundering money, doesn't it? I mean, do they actually sell anything at those prices?

 

Hah! It could totally be a front...although after a few Big Easy Daiquiris I'm sure those prices seem like must-haves at that point.

Worth sharing a few pics of Peaches that I snapped last time I was down there:

 

I shouldn’t do this because there are several more out of print Blue Note CDs I am trying to track down, but in the interest of being a good forum member and since maybe 15 people are on this thread, I will opine that for jazz CDs I have never seen a better store than Dusty Groove in Chicago. I have done most of my CD shopping over the past few years at Reckless Records since I can walk to the Loop location, but they have very little jazz (great on rock though). Dusty Groove, a Subway train ride for me, which I hadn’t been to in a few years, specializes in jazz and soul. The used bin is littered with Japan issues, Connoisseur Editions, Rare Groove editions a plenty and every CD I’ve seen is near mint. And it seems to be the same for LPs (i.e rare stuff) although I didn’t even want to look at those for fear of going broke. The store is well cared for and the staff is very nice. I don’t know where the owner sources his finds but I have only seen as many obis in my dreams. Overall I would call their pricing fair, they know what is out of print so you aren’t going to make a grail find for cheap. Left the store today with Duke Pearson Wahoo, Lou Donaldson Hot Dog and Lee Morgan The Rajah, all oop and tough to find in the wild. Average CD price was about $15 for those which I gladly paid because I was able to look at the CD and see they are flawless. If there is so much as a frayed edge on the liner notes they will make a condition note of it and every cd is put in a plastic baggie (one small gripe, if you don’t want the wife to see the price, you can not peel the sticker off without a mess). Only problem is that I have no more disposable income right now, so go nuts. An example from today, left a Connoisseur Edition that I had never seen before in the bin and it is surrounded by Japan issue CDs.

 

Newbury Comics should not be on this list.

The Princeton Record Exchange should be on this list. (Princeton, NJ)