What is a shop called that sells music CDs?

What is a shop called that sells music CDs (American English)? Such shops also offer some classic or traditional music on other forms of media — vinyl or cassettes. However they do not sell music instruments or offers music classes (see photo).

Man browsing CDs in specialist shop


The somewhat outdated title is Record Store or Record Shop.


Record store, also Record shop:

  • an outlet that sells recorded music

(Collins Dictionary)

As shown in Ngram "record shop" is the more common definition in BrE while (see Ngram) "record store" is more common in AmE.

Spillers Records in Cardiff, Wales, founded in 1894 by Henry Spiller, is reputed to be the oldest record shop in the world. It originally specialised in the sale of phonographs, cylinders and shellac discs. (The world's oldest record shop: on the vinyl frontier since 1894).

(Wikipedia)(The Guardian)

America's oldest record store, George's Song Shop:

  • First opened in 1932, George's currently enjoys the distinction of being the oldest existing record store in America.

  • George’s Song Shop was know as Bernie George’s Song Shop from 1932-1941. The sign outside read Bernie George’s Song Shop until 1961.

(www.vinylives.com)


Back when such things mattered, growing up in the US we called them "music stores".


If it sells only recorded music, Americans usually call it a record store, no matter the media. This is analogous to considering the store to be part of a database of music, one recording being a record regardless of the physical media. Each piece of music, whether collected into an album or individually would be a file.

I believe anyone who grew up with iTunes would agree since that's the model Apple used when designing iTunes. The Youtube generation might see it different, but still in terms of data storage. If the store's inventory includes audio books, paperbacks and hardbacks in addition to recorded music, it is called a bookstore. Barnes&Noble is an example of a bookstore that sells music.