Record stores of the day

One advantage we had being in a city region was the variety and number of shops we had and in particular of record shops which were always a haunt on Saturday's and hols which was only bettered if one caught the train to the Black Country or Manchester which had the national chains such as HMV although we gained one in 1992.

I remember going to it on the first day of opening inside the then titled Potteries Shopping Centre, the first massive mall we had in the city centre opened in late 1988.

The real strength of this area for shopping was the independents and that certainly came into it given our six district centres plus one layout rather than that of one centre and surburbs cos its's less of a city and more of conurbation.

Thus in each district you had their own "local" record stores which for me meant Replay Records on Tunstall high street which had a large selection 12 inch and seven inch singles apart from albums and discount bins for anything that had peaked.

It didn't do much with other media such as cassettes unlike some although it did sell blank tapes for taping your own which I did a lot of .

We also had our own Woolworths which had a fair sized music section and was the first place I bought a record from before Replay opened and they had a top 75 7 inch single wall, rotating racks of pre-recorded tapes and budget albums followed by main racks for chart and selected back catalogue.

Chrissy's Market Store on Saturday's was a gem for having used records, heavily discounted import albums and singles an example of which was the mere £1.49 I paid for the 1978 Paul Stanley solo album as a sealed cut out where I'd of paid normally around a fiver for as a new domestic copy.

From time to time I would go into the City Centre and for a period I worked in it so it was a lunch time, before the bus comes in destination which in the mid 80's had around five large stores each with their own specialities such as Japanese imports, ticket sales or extensive quality used sections.

For much of 80's and 90's, Mike Lloyd Music Mega Store was the place to be because it had the biggest selection of compact discs, very extensive vinyl back catalogue, trade ins and sold tickets to local venues such as the Victoria Hall plus Bingley Hall, Stafford.

Many was the day I'd be in surrounded by students holding our Bluetones albums on vinyl in line while the upstairs held publications, discounted and used vinyl.

It was the first place locally to stock blank and pre-recorded MiniDiscs and had its own version of the Sony Music Nice Price paper catalogue printed with new mid price re-releases

As the bags your purchases went in stated there were branches too in Queen Street Wolverhampton and Newcastle although the city centre branch was the main one.

 

As befitted an area with two universities despite being sandwiched between Manchester in the North and Big Bad Brum the area was largely self sufficient with its own network of shops rivalling larger population areas.