Idolator
Long concerned with shoving as much non-music-related crap underneath their roofs as they can fit, the Virgin Megastores remaining on US soil are now going to clear space for actual musical performances this fall. Virgin is going to host its first-ever battle of the bands—called, inexplicably, Virgin Mega-Mashup—with in-store performances taking place in the chain's airport hangar-sized outlets throughout the country. The winner gets the chance to take meetings with Virgin execs and people from Alan Parsons/Dishwalla label Immergent Records, Also: Did you know that there were only 11 Virgin Megastores left in the States? Even though that number seems small, it also includes at least one too many in New York City, according to my gut feeling.
Bands To Battle At Virgin Megastores [Billboard.biz]
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The Virgin on 14th St is an excellent source of new release vinyl, usually cheaper than CDs ($12-$16). The reissues are overpriced, though.
Psst: the Union Square Virgin Megastore is currently selling a bunch of quality box sets for half price. This means you can score the wonderful One Kiss Can Lead To Another for about $37. They had dozens of 'em when I checked last week.
How many chain record store locations are left in Manhattan? Twenty, maybe? Ten?
The Virgin on 14th is the only place I can get imported singles, now Tower's closed. Sigh.
So I tried to find the 11 locations via their US site, and now it redirects to a literal Amazon.com mirror of their stores' product.
Where can a plebeian like me find these 11 locations?
The bottom of this page.
Long Island location, R.I.P.
The site says the Times Square store is the "largest entertainment store in the world" but I thought that honor fell to an HMV in the UK or Japan. Anyone?
OK, not counting your big-box multi-purpose retail stores like Best Buy or your mini-empires like Kim's, there are just THREE chain "record" stores in Mahattan: one FYE (1290 Avenue of the Americas), two Virgin Megastores (Times Square and Union Square), and...that's it. That's really fucking it. Wow.
("Record" in quotes because obviously the profit margins for these three are almost certainly coming from DVDs and knick-knacks, not CDs.)
I should mosey on down to the public library one day and find out how many chain record stores there were back in, say, 1979 or 1984.
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