Supermarket shuffle: Record store dealers curate the perfect playlist for 2024
On the high street in Meersbrook, Sheffield, gently placed between a barbershop and a bhaji shop, is Spinning Disc Records, one of the many record shops that can be found dotted around the city. The door doesn’t close all the way, creating a duet between Leonard Cohen and passing cars as you take a moment to glance over the different sections and prepare yourself for searching.
To the right is a display dedicated to Sheffield. Artists like Pulp, Arctic Monkeys, Self Esteem and The Reytons climb up the wall, flaunting the city’s musical capabilities in all their glory. Next to them are all of the new vinyl from the present to decades ago; new pressings stem from genre to genre, making their way to the cash desk, behind which is Dan, gently nodding his head to the music and busying himself with whatever admin work record shops require.
We talk about our respective record collections and the difference between owning physical media and playing songs digitally. “It’s a different experience,” he says, “If you’re going to go online and listen to stuff on a streaming service, you’ve basically already made up your mind. There might be banners that advertise new stuff but if you’re going on to listen to a Van Morrison album or an Olivia Rodrigo album or whatever, you’ve made your mind up before you even switch on your device and press play.”
“I suppose to a degree, once you’ve got your own record collection, that’s the same, but even when I’m at home looking through my records, I’ll think, ‘Oh, I haven’t played that for a while’, and pick it out. You’ve not consciously decided what to listen to. You might decide, ‘Oh, I’m going to play that Pink Floyd album’, and if, like me, you’ve got your record alphabetised, you might then go, ‘Oh, that Pretty Things album hasn’t been played for ages’, and you’re playing something else you weren’t expecting.”
As well as the newer vinyl, half of Spinning Discs is also dedicated to second-hand picks, with sections broken up depending on how rare a record is. While there is a live Thin Lizzy record for £9 in one part of the shop, in the other are complete rarities such as The Crystals’ ‘He’s a Rebel’, Led Zeppelin’s White Summer and Megadeath’s Killing Is My Business. All records fill the same box in a collection worth upwards of thousands.
“Second hand I like,” says Dan, “You never know what you’re gonna find in any record shop; sometimes it might be the cover that takes your eye, or you might be a fan of Slade, so you head to the ‘S’ section, but then you might pick up something else. There might be something in that section that takes your eye instead. I mean, there’s been so many records released, it’s like finding a needle in a haystack walking into any record shop.”
Dan’s right. Record shops are endless treasure troves, filled with albums that you could busy yourself with for hours without fully exploring them all. The surge in vinyl over the past decade or so has led to the physical representation of a good problem to have as a listener: there is too much music. We already know that when you start browsing on Spotify, just typing in one word is enough to bring up more results than you can get through in your lifetime, but record shops make that realisation a physical one, and the mountain of music available becomes tangible.
Looking through Spinning Discs, it’s clear just how much music there is available for me to choose from, and this is one record shop in a city with loads of them. As such, to help narrow the search, we at Far Out have reached out to some of our favourite record stores and asked them to do the hard work for us, looking through their entire record collection and picking the albums they would recommend most. The result? A playlist representative of record stores across the country.
Spinning Discs, Sheffield
Different Class – Pulp
“I remember buying Different Class the day it came out from a shop in the centre of Sheffield. It was Warp Records, which then kind of got folded. I remember queueing up and buying that then, but that is constantly a best-seller for us and, unsurprisingly, other Sheffield bands, mainly Arctic Monkeys. I would say that Pulp and Arctic Monkeys are our biggest sellers. You might go, ‘Well, you’re in Sheffield, it’s kind of obvious’, but it still astounds me, they’ve both made great albums, both those bands, but it still astounds me that not everybody owns those records.”
Favourite Worst Nightmare – Arctic Monkeys
“The best sellers are always the first album, second album and AM… I completely respect you get into different stuff as you grow, all their albums are different, you know? Probably the nearest they’ve ever got to staying the same is the first two albums, but even they’ve got a gulf between them. They still sell, I would say Favourite Worst Nightmare is their best album.”
Drift Records, Devon
Journey in Satchidananda – Alice Coltrane
“Transcendental floating from Coltrane on piano and harp, with saxophonist Pharoah Sanders as a stunning counter-balance. This really is an absolute classic. We can’t leave it alone.”
Package Pt. 2 – Gustaf
“Sharp, wry and really pounding, Package Pt. 2 is the second studio set from Brooklyn no-wave / post-punks, Gustaf. It’s our April 2024 Record of the Month.”
Congo Funk! Sound Madness From The Shores Of The Mighty Congo River (Kinshasa/Brazzaville 1969-1982)– Various Artists
“The Analog Africa team undertook a hugely ambitious trawl through some two thousand funk songs (making two journeys to Kinshasa and one to Brazzaville) to compile this effervescent set of swirling funk goodness from 1969 to 1982.”
Jumbo Records, Leeds
Zero Grace – Liam Bailey
“Liam Bailey’s new album has been on repeat listen in the shop as we’ve been massively enjoying it over the past couple of weeks. Soulful, fun, and packed full of playful nods to seventies roots reggae- a masterwork!”
The Nervous Kats – Bailey’s Nervous Kats
“The Numero group strike again with this fantastic re-issue of rock and roll/surf/exotica weirdness from California. Isolated at the rural fringe of Northern California, Bailey’s Nervous Kats took Shasta County by storm in the early ‘60s. This has been on repeat listen in the shop recently, we can’t get enough!”
Bob Stanley & Jason Woods Present: Fantastic Voyage – New Sounds For The European Canon 1977-1981
“We’re big fans of Bob Stanley’s compilations – in our view, he hasn’t put a foot wrong. Fantastic Voyage is the companion piece to the ace Cafe Exil he put out a couple of years ago and includes forays into ambient, electronica and synth-led grooves. There’s jazz and electro, spacial proto-triphop and studio experimentation, but every track on here is a winner, a particular highlight being Robert Fripp’s mammoth-groove slinker, ‘Exposure’.”
Third Man Records, London
Cartwheel – Hotline TNT
“Cartwheel is the second album from Hotline TNT, aka New York-based indie stalwart and DIY scene linchpin Will Anderson (previously of cult group Weed), and one which we’ve had on constant rotation since its release last November. To our ears, it’s a perfect, seamless listen, bursting with butterfly-inducing punk-rock gems to mosh to (speaking of which, you can catch the band headlining London’s The Dome next Wednesday, April 24th). The indie variant ‘Conch Street Splatter’ (IYKYK) is sold out pretty much everywhere, but we have a few copies left at Third Man London…”
Playing Favorites – Sheer Mag
“Sheer Mag’s oft-referenced, never-replicated sound has played an undeniably large role in stoking the current resurgence of interest in power-pop forward rock music. On Playing Favorites, the Philadelphia four-piece’s third full-length and first with Third Man Records, the band capitalise on a decade’s worth of devotion to their own collective spirit—a spirit refined in both the sweaty trenches of punk warehouses and the glamour of concert halls—emerging with a dense work of gripping emotions, massive hooks and masterfully constructed power-pop anthems all lead by frontwoman Tina Halladay’s earth-shaking vocals. This is the record the Philadelphian rock and roll four-piece has always been destined to make!”
Live at Third Man Records – Kassa Overall
“Boundary-pushing drummer/producer/rapper Kassa Overall is the latest artist to record direct-to-acetate at Third Man Records Nashville’s Blue Room venue. The record features an impressive lineup of longtime collaborators including trumpeter Theo Croker, the Detroit native Ian Finkelstein, a protegé of the late Geri Allen and Amp Fiddler; Haitian-Canadian percussionist Bendji Allonce, son of Kompa legend Herman Nau; and Tomoki Sanders (they/them), a multi-instrumentalist from Japan and New York whose father was the great Pharoah Sanders. Phew!”
