We had HMV, Woolworths, and tiny independents where you could test a single before you bought it.
Back in the early to mid-1970s, I would pay a weekly visit to an independent record shop in the local city centre, or “up town” as we liked to say. By then, I was old enough to have my own record player at home — an old square box with a lid on it that made a tinny sound. It was mono, and the only speaker was built into the box.
It would be a while before I managed to buy a stereo record player with twin speakers.
The record shop visit was a weekend, Saturday ritual. It had to be a Saturday, because everywhere was shut on a Sunday. I would save up my pocket money, topped up later by money from a paper round.
The high-street record shop was a central part of teenage life, although you would rarely find me browsing the latest Top 40. I would spend my time looking through racks of records of the obscure. Bands and artists, many of which I had never heard of.
The city had the big high street names like HMV, with its iconic dog-and-gramophone logo. A place where everything looked neat, and they had knowledgeable staff. Woolworths, by contrast, had a jumble sale, pick and mix charm — rows of singles in plastic sleeves, “DISCOUNT” boxes, and “ex-chart” records that nobody had heard of.
But it was the smaller independent shops that had real character. Every town had at least one. They could usually be found down a side street, or in the back streets, out of the way. Shops that were a little scruffy, often looked run down and were owned by someone who knew everything that there was to know about the music they sold. They could tell you who produced the B-side, and whether your favourite band’s new single was “a bit commercial, mate.”
This was long before online streaming, playlists, or algorithms. No YouTube or MTV. All we had was the radio, and that was, for the most part, very mainstream. Music wasn’t just something you clicked to hear. It was something you had to make an effort to get, physically, deliberately.
It was at the record shop that you might find something you liked, but only after a good deal of dithering. But the shop provided us with the means to do it — the listening booth.
The booth was a tiny wooden cubicle where you could sample a record before deciding whether it was worth spending your hard-earned 50p. It was like a phone box, but darker and a lot warmer. There was usually more than one, all in a row.
In the booth next door you might hear the muffled thump, thump, thump of someone else playing the latest ABBA single. That would soon be muffled out by a louder sound, like The Ramones or the Rolling Stones.
In their own way, the booths were really simple: a door, a bench, a pair of large headphones, or a wall-mounted speaker. You took your single to the person at the counter, and the assistant would nod, slot the record on the shop’s master deck, and lower the needle, which would send the sound directly to your booth.
In the booth, you’d sit there (some were standing only), closing the door behind you (some didn’t have a door), sealed into your own private world. For the next few minutes, it was just you and the music. No parents shouting upstairs, “Turn that racket down!”
No one is judging your taste.
Just you, listening to the sound of the latest Bowie, T. Rex, Sweet, or Slade track in your ears. Although occasionally, the assistant put on the wrong side of the record.
Buying a record was a serious decision. Money was tight — well, it was for me, and singles weren’t cheap, even at fifty pence. You didn’t want to bring home something that sounded brilliant on the radio but terrible on your turntable. And there were many like that on my ‘tinny’ mono record player.
And when you did choose to buy, there was nothing better than walking out of the shop with that slim paper bag in hand, the record inside. The big test was when I got home and tried it on the record player. If my parents were out, I would try it on their stereo.
The listening booth gave us that confidence to buy.
What happened to them?
By the late 70s and into the 80s, the booths began to vanish. More open-plan shop designs took over. Maybe home taping and better stereos meant we could listen to records elsewhere.
Today, record shops have seen a resurgence in vinyl’s revival, but the private listening booth has faded into history.
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