Manhattan record shopping survived the rent apocalypse and came out sharper. The East Village cluster lets you hit five shops in an afternoon on foot, downtown holds the jazz grails, and the city's turnover means bins refresh faster than anywhere in the country. Prices are the toll; knowledge is free.
4.5 ★★★★★ 2,613 reviews
Venerable independent record store for obscure & mainstream CDs & vinyl, plus live music & a bar.
4.5 ★★★★★ 959 reviews
Fixture for CDs & vinyl with a strong punk & metal selection plus tees, posters, DVDS & more.
4.6 ★★★★★ 804 reviews
Funky, cozy destination to buy, sell, or trade vintage vinyl records of all genres.
4.3 ★★★★☆ 632 reviews
One-stop shop with new & used LPs & CDs across a broad range of genres, plus movies.
4.5 ★★★★★ 340 reviews
Circa-1975 destination for turntables, mixers, headphones & vinyl records, with DJ demos & classes.
4.6 ★★★★★ 315 reviews
Intimate music store offering new & used LP records across many genres.
These shops buy collections: Rough Trade Above, A-1 Record Shop, Academy Records & CDs, Village Revival Records, Academy Records, Westsider Records. Read our selling guide before you go — pull your valuable titles first.
A decent sized record shop with a selection of vinyls that have been carefully curated. You can tell that a lot of thought was put behind selecting which records to include in Rough Trade's inventory. In addition, the shop's aesthetic is 👌🔥!
As a vinyl lover from Asia, visiting Generation Records felt like stepping into paradise. It’s hard to find such a well-stocked collection of American pop vinyls — even in cities like Tokyo, most used vinyl records stores lean heavily toward metal, rock, or jazz. But here, I found tons of 80s U.S.
Maybe the best shop I know of in NYC. I’ve visited 3 times & have always walked out with a stacked tote bag. A-1 has a high volume of inventory that seems to cycle fast.
