Amoeba Records Tops SPIN's List of Best Record Stores
As noted earlier, it's Record Store Day on Saturday. So SPIN decided to promote the event by naming America's 15 Best Indie Record Stores. And with no surprise Amoeba Records, with locations in Hollywood, San Francisco and Berkeley, got top honors because "it represents a sort of music lovers' heavenly refuge:"
Their vast, bright warehouse spaces house massive, constantly shifting new and used stock (more than 100,000 titles per store), painstakingly curated into ultra-specific, world-spanning genre sections. Factor in a mind-blowing history of in-stores (browse their online video gallery for a taste), and it's no surprise that a majority of people, when asked about great record stores in the U.S., respond with "Oh, like Amoeba?"
Waterloo in Austin came in at 2 and New York City's Other Music at 3. The full list is below.
Top 15 picks:
15. Record Exchange (Boise, Idaho)
14. True Vine (Baltimore, Maryland)
13. Electric Fetus (Minneapolis, Minnesota)
12. Goner (Memphis, Tennessee)
11. Reckless (Chicago, Illinois)
10. Wuxtry (Athens, Georgia)
9. Music Millenium (Portland, Oregon)
8. Grimey’s (Nashville, Tennessee)
7. Aquarius (San Francisco, CA)
6. Ear X-Tacy (Louisville, Kentucky)
5. Sonic Boom (Seattle, Washington)
4. Wax ‘N Facts (Atlanta, Georgia)
3. Other Music (New York, NY)
2. Waterloo (Austin, TX)
1. Amoeba (Hollywood, CA)