The first purchase I made with my own money was a single by The Kinks, "All Day and All of the Night" and still one of my all time favorites.
I definitely love record stores. And worked in many over the years. Having said that, it's not necessarily that I love vinyl per se. I mean, I'm happy to use CDs and MP3s: to me, it's the music that's top priority. I do have a good collection of vinyl, but I rarely actually pull it out.
Certainly, R.E.M. grew out of the Wuxtry record store in Athens, where Peter Buck was working and Michael Stipe came in to visit. And even their later manager, Bertis Downs, they all met and congregated at that record store. So I'm sure we wouldn't see those without the record store.
I love iTunes as much as anybody. It's very convenient and very easy. But there is nothing like the vibe that you get when you walk into a record store. And I think a lot of people are still thrilled to spend a half hour there and go through the bins and make some purchases.
It's a great meeting place, community center, art gallery, singles bar, music venue. The record store really covers a lot of ground.
Whenever I go to a new city, whether visiting or vacationing, I would always make that a point to get to the record store early on, just to get my bearings and see what was going on around town.
