Where can I buy vinyl online?

October 11, 2006 11:05 AM

Where can I buy vinyl online? I've used Insound before, and although they are great, their selection is limited. The only place I usually have success finding anything is at my local music shop which isn't very local anymore. The other post I looked at regarding buying vinyl online was limited to club/deep/progressive house, but I'm looking more for indie rock records.
posted by mgrimm to media & arts (17 comments total)

there isn't a whole lot of indie rock vinyl being released these days. insound is as good an online source for it as any i've found. if you want older/used indie vinyl, check gemm.com which compiles listings from all sorts of sellers.
posted by noloveforned at 11:11 AM on October 11, 2006

Anthem records in Portland has a good selection of vinyl, and does good internet business. They have lots of indie stuff. Their shipping is kind of high for a single LP, but you can add several more for the same price, so if you do a larger order it works well.
posted by OmieWise at 11:23 AM on October 11, 2006

Elusive Disc
posted by caddis at 11:25 AM on October 11, 2006

Aquarius Records.
posted by The corpse in the library at 11:32 AM on October 11, 2006

I'm going to have to disagree with ned, I definitely have no problem finding vinyl releases these days. I just got the new Jason Molina and the new Early Day Miners on vinyl.

Do yourself a favor, and buy directly from the labels, if you can. A lot of labels (Kranky/Constellation, Merge, Jadetree, Undertow, Secretly Candian, etc) have webshops where you can buy with credit cards or paypal. And most of their releases are available on vinyl.

Not to be down on the web stores like insound, but I feel a little better about buying directly from the label, in hopes that more of my cash is going either towards the artist, or towards making more good records. A lot of artists sell directly from their websites, and some even sell directly from their myspace pages.

And of course, there's always shows. I've been known to hold out on buying a new album until the artist comes to town, just so I can but it directly from them.

If you're really dying for sites, there's Burnt Toast and BoomKat.
posted by god hates math at 11:38 AM on October 11, 2006

god hates math... does god even have a capacity for hate? well i suppose that would be a whole new topic of discussion.

I do agree that buying directly from the band or the label is the way to go. do searches on your favorites. you might be surprised at what you find.

like this
posted by Paleoindian at 11:54 AM on October 11, 2006

Acoustic Sounds
posted by mike0221 at 11:55 AM on October 11, 2006

This place, Bananas records is evidently some sort of vinyl mecca down here in St Petersburg. It's written up constantly with famous DJ's and rappers and the sort coming down here and raiding the bins.
posted by willmize at 12:03 PM on October 11, 2006

Musicstack.com
posted by Kirth Gerson at 1:07 PM on October 11, 2006

my point was that fewer indie labels are producing vinyl and most of those that are can be purchased through insound. thus if he finds the selection limited at insound, it's more likely a result of fewer labels pressing vinyl.

other online indie retailers who sell vinyl: midheaven mailorder and forced exposure
posted by noloveforned at 1:20 PM on October 11, 2006

Alternative Tentacles sells most of the stuff on vinyl. Because Jello says so.
posted by Gungho at 1:34 PM on October 11, 2006

you may find that Sister Ray can help - they're based in London but do mail-order vinyl of all flavours, specialising in rare indie/rock as well as new releases, and as the site has an option to change the currency to dollars I assume they ship internationally.
posted by corvine at 2:32 PM on October 11, 2006

Parasol.
posted by coach_mcguirk at 3:32 PM on October 11, 2006

Probably not exactly what you're after, but Dusty Groove is awesome. It's less indie rock than jazz, soul and funk, but they have lots of both old and new stuff that I lust after.
posted by pullayup at 7:09 PM on October 11, 2006

You've indicated that you're interested mainly in buying indie records, but you may want to have a look at vinyl.com anyhow. They seem to specialize in reissues of popular music, so most of their stock isn't particularly obscure or even current, but it's a great place from which to build your record collection with must-haves by the likes of Ornette Coleman, Marvin Gaye, the Ramones, etc. The bulk of my beloved James Brown collection comes from vinyl.com.

A friend with a beautiful 180-gram vinyl LP of Big Star's #1 Record has told me that many high-quality reissues (possibly bootlegs?) can be ordered from sources in Italy, though I don't remember any details, unfortunately.
posted by cobra libre at 1:48 PM on October 12, 2006

Rasputin's.
posted by LuckySeven~ at 5:56 PM on October 12, 2006

The meta-index known as GEMM lists vinyl.
posted by softlord at 6:17 AM on October 13, 2006