Albany, NY | Last Vestige record store ownership changes to longtime employee: In the sea of beige buildings and houses on Quail Street, a bright pink store catches the eye. Inside, vinyl albums line the walls, thousands of boxed records organized by artist and genre wait for searching fingers, and two cats prowl the aisles. Last Vestige Music Shop has been a Capital Region institution for over 36 years. Founded by Jim Furlong in 1989, the shop’s collection of vinyl, CDs, cassette tapes, as well as its atmosphere, has attracted a passionate music community to the store, from casual listeners dipping their toes into the world of vinyl to connoisseurs looking for hidden gems in a bargain bin.
Louisville, KY | Electric Ladyland announces closure after nearly 50 years on Bardstown Road: The longtime Highlands Douglass business announced the closure Monday in a post on its Facebook page. An iconic Louisville business will close its doors after nearly five decades in the Highlands Douglass neighborhood. Electric Ladyland announced the closure Monday in a post on its Facebook page. “After 48 incredible years, it is with heavy hearts that we announce the closing of Electric Ladyland,” the post read. The smoke shop, record and metaphysical supply store opened in 1978 and is known for its bright Bardstown Road storefront, counterculture roots, and hippie-inspired decor and exterior, according to our partners at Louisville Business First. Named after Jimi Hendrix’s final studio album, the shop’s sign and logo feature the late musician’s photo.
Bristol, UK | Vinyl, canvas and card decks: The launch of Rough Trade’s listening bar: The traditional gallery space can sometimes feel clinical and detached, but the city’s best art thrives where people can actually talk to each other. This weekend, the new ‘listening bar’ at Rough Trade Bristol became the site of that exact kind of creative collision. Curated by the Loovre—what claims to be ‘Bristol’s smallest and most excloosive art gallery’ based in the toilet at the People’s Republic of Stokes Croft building—Akin was a mixed-media exhibition bringing together a diverse cohort of local creatives to map what community and culture meant to them. Amid the steady crackle of vinyl records and a stacked lineup of live music, the art on display functioned less like static decoration and more like a live conversation starter.
Olivia Rodrigo’s latest vinyl drop got fans complaining about draining wallet: Chances are, if you are a fan of Olivia Rodrigo, or music in general, you are waiting for for the singer-songwriter’s third studio album, “you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love” to drop on June 12. The 23-year-old singer has previously released the entire 13-song track list on May 26, after dropping the lead single titled “Drop Dead” on April 17. The music video, shot amid the picturesque walls of the Palace of Versailles, debuted as No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Safe to say, the hype around Rodrigo’s third album is at an all time high. It is not the end of it, as the songstress announced another surprise for her collector fans.
Record stores to host midnight events for new Olivia Rodrigo album: Olivia Rodrigo’s fans will seem pretty tired for fans so excited—because they’ll be staying up past midnight to buy her new album at nearly 200 indie record stores across the country Thursday night. In addition to allowing fans to purchase the vinyl and CD versions of you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love, these special midnight sales events will include exclusive merchandise, limited-edition collectibles and special releases. Among the items fans can score: tote bags, T-shirts, posters, color vinyl variants of SOUR and GUTS, and a 7-inch vinyl of a song that will be announced later. You can find a list of participating stores near you at RecordStoreDay.com.
New York, NY | Thanks to the Numero Group’s NYC Pop-Up, Lower Manhattan Has Its Record Store: The Numero Group has the pop-up hustle down to a science. The Chicago-based record label has been touring cities all around the world for more than a decade with its popular pop-ups, typically setting up shop for a few days before hitting the road again. But as selectees to the Downtown Alliance’s RE:Store program, they’ll be sticking around for a while and keeping their temporary storefront at 186 Front St. open through Labor Day. For the first time in years, we can say that Lower Manhattan has a record store.
Chattanooga, TN | Local record store to celebrate anniversary with a special charity event: Dallos Vinyl Love, a locally owned record store, is celebrating their first anniversary of opening with a special charity event that brings together the community and the love for music. On Saturday, June 13 from 10 AM – 6 PM, Dallos Vinyl Love will host “Drop the Needle” which will open the record store to local leaders and creatives. A special lineup of “Vibe Masters” will get to play a specially curated set, with sales be donated to the Vibe Master’s choosing.
Kids these days are listening to more songs from the good old days: Music nostalgia is in full swing, and the younger listeners of today appear to be partying like it’s pre-1999. With Mexico about to host a raft of World Cup games, the zeitgeist moving on from a recent “Star Wars” movie, and Michael Jackson storming the charts, you’d be forgiven in 2026 for thinking you’d gone back in time to 1986. As a buzzy biopic moonwalks the King of Pop back into the mainstream, Jackson’s “Billie Jean” recently topped both Spotify’s global streaming chart and the Billboard Global 200 more than 43 years after its initial release. But, zooming out, lists indicating the most listened to songs today are increasingly populated by some of the biggest tracks of yesteryear.
Edinburgh, UK | Revival in vinyl sparks sale of second hand CDs: One of the consequences of the revival in vinyl has been the revival in the second hand compact disc. There was a time, of course, when vinyl was so out of favour that people were literally throwing their collections into skips, especially when moving house. We would regularly get in several boxes of records from a customer neatly numbered Box 1, Box 2 etc. These boxes were actually vinyl that had escaped the skip when a person moved but had then stayed in the box for all the time that person had lived in their new house or flat and when they came to move again they realised that they were never going to play their records again and rather than take them with them, they might as well sell them.
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