In our accelerated culture, collective nostalgia, in which we mourn the freshly antiquated for reasons that are unclear but still enormously potent, is its own cottage industry (especially for culture reporters).Īt the store’s inception-and, I’d argue, for most of its lifespan-what distinguished Other Music from other independent record shops, both in this city and beyond it, was the quietly confrontational ethos behind its name. Most of those Ends-whether real or imagined-have already been eulogized so aggressively that to revisit them now seems plainly indulgent. Things that once appeared immovably vital are now relics to be examined, mourned, and recast as affectations.Ĭritics can and have read Other Music’s bow-out as representative, in an allegorical way, of any number of bigger Ends: the End of music as a physical medium to be collected and doted over, the End of curated off-line retail, the End of curation, the End of the East Village, the End of New York.

The prevailing trend of our time is, it seems, a disburdening of the past. The headline of a Times article last month announcing the store’s finish read, “Other Music Record Shop, Yielding to Trends, Will Close.” What “trends” means in this context is startlingly self-evident. No longer will sealed Belle and Sebastian or Boards of Canada LPs be tentatively placed on its counter. This Saturday, Other Music-the tiny, beloved, and outré record shop on East Fourth Street-will cease its retail operations.

New york records store