Music Stores & Shopping Malls

 It is weird that music stores at some point became a thing of the past.  I would imagine that in some cities and perhaps some other places there are still used record shops that exist.  Large department stores like Walmart and Target also still have small sections with very limited amounts of vinyl records and CDs.  Barnes & Noble also still has a music and video section although I don’t know how much can actually be found there.  Gone are the days though of whole stores that sold both older and newer music in the form of albums, cassettes, vinyl and cassette singles and then CDs.  Shopping malls usually included a music store.

IMO malls are much less interesting nowadays unless a person is all about shopping for clothes, shoes, handbags, jewelry, makeup and perfume.  The exception would be the larger department stores, which do also have other departments.  And you might still find stores like Spencer’s for young people, but gone are stores like music stores, The Nature Company, the Discovery Channel Store, Linens n Things, KB toys, Wicks N Sticks, McCrory’s and different book stores (I remember Walden books, Brentanos, B Dalton and Borders).  No, malls just aren’t the same anymore, for a person such as myself anyway.  Other interesting shops that do still exist typically aren’t found within indoor malls anymore.  I guess this is my little retail history lesson. 🤓

On a sidenote, when I was a college student in Boston, Woolworth was my favorite store.  There were two that I could go to, and one that I could walk to in less than 15 minutes.  What a shame that Woolworth stores in the US are a thing of the past.

On another sidenote, McCrory’s was where we would go to purchase inexpensive bags of popcorn and candy before seeing movies at the movie theater connected to the mall.  Back in the day, we were allowed to carry snacks from outside into the movie theater.  Then at the movie theater, we could purchase a soda that was dispensed into a cup from a vending machine for $.25.  Times have certainly changed.  Now you need like $50 for a couple people to see a movie and purchase popcorn and a drink.  It’s probably even more now.  I haven’t been to a movie theater in quite a while.