WOW: DO You Remember These 11 Funky Berkshire County Record/CD Shops?

I remember at one time when records were out of fashion and cassettes and later compact discs took center stage. Nowadays, records have made a resurgence and compact discs have fallen by the wayside in popularity. Cassettes? Not too much to say about them lately.

In addition to records becoming popular again within the last 10 years or so, downloading music digitally is probably the most popular choice for the majority of music consumers. It's kind of sad though because entire albums will probably never sell the way they did decades ago due to the fact that the majority of people are only downloading individual tracks, the hits, and not the entire album. This also changes the way we listen to music. Gone are the days of listening to an entire album from top to bottom. There was a method to the artists lining up the tracks in a particular order. Could you imagine if Pink Floyd's 'The Wall' was just thrown together with very little thought put into the positioning of tracks? We would have a very different experience of listening to that album. The same is true with 'Darkside of the Moon' and the list goes on and on.

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I started getting into music to the point where I would purchase CDs at the age of 10. Even with the easy task of skipping tracks, I would listen to CDs from the first track through the last track. I was really into purchasing music on compact discs, to the point where I would spend my paper route money on my newfound addiction. Back in the day, albums would be released on Tuesday. For a while, most Tuesdays I would take my paper route earnings to Record Giant in North Adams and purchase CDs the day they were released. The Offspring's 'Ixnay on the Hombre,' Green Day's 'Insomniac, Red Hot Chili Peppers 'One Hot Minute,' Metallica's 'Load,' Soul Asylum's 'Let Your Dim Light Shine' and many others were all purchased by me on the day they hit the shelves in the music stores

With all of this nostalgia, I started thinking about some of the record/CD stores that I visited in Berkshire County back in the day, that are no longer in existence. Do you remember these shops?

Let's not forget about some of the Berkshire Mall music stores. 

Those are my memories and experiences of shopping at local music shops in Berkshire County back in the day. What local music shops do you remember and what would you add to the list?

While on the topic of music, what are your thoughts on these cover tunes?