Neil Kulkarni's R.I.P. HMV  -- nostalgia, analogue vs digital, record shop as shrine and sanctuary for the vinyl pilgim

and

The British Record Shop Archive (via History Is Made At Night)

"The record shop was once the centre of every music lover's universe, from the beginnings of the vinyl 12 inch in the
1940's through to the digital music developments of the 1990's, millions of us browsed, socialised and bought music
in our local record shop or high street department stores.  Record shops were an integral part of the social fabric in local areas.  They launched pop stars, record labels, and were focal points for emerging music genres.  The aim of this site is to record the history of the record shop in an accessible archive, to hold intrinsic details that could get lost in the mix, and to celebrate the role that the record shop played. We are looking for memories through stories,anecdotes, comments, photographs, videos, record shop bags, posters and more.    For example, what  was your first record and where did you buy it?"  

Looked in the Hertfordshire subsection of the East England section, but no mention of the little shop on Lower King's Road where I got my Scritti EPs and Ian Dury albums. Or indeed the place on the High Street owned by Mr Peake (later the Mayor) that actually had headphones for platter-listening in the groovy early Seventies style and where the Goodies did a PA.   But perhaps both of these are too everyday to provoke the archival impulse. Just non-specialist record shops of the kind that the UK, in those days, was crawling with. You could also buy your records at W.H. Smith of course, or Woolworths, or from electrical goods stores like the one on the High Street where I used to be fascinated, as a 7 year old, by an album by Bread - just the fact that a group would call itself Bread.