Beanos Record Shop Goes Under

Croydon jokes are to Londoners what New Jersey quips are to Manhattanites. However, Croydon had one thing to recommend it, the world’s largest second-hand record shop called Beanos. In operation since 1975, it was where one went to get the vinyl recordings no one else had, or where one went to sell off something when money got tight. Beanos announced in July that it was shutting its doors, and the Christmas sales are done. It’s just a matter of days now.

According to David Lashmar, the man (or is it The Man?) who runs Beanos, “Ironically, it is not internet sales and downloading that has affected us, most of our customers are hands-on types who want to flick through racks of Records, CDs and DVDs, in the old style; ‘BROWSERS’, in fact. It is just that we are not getting enough of them any more!” Imagine, a guy so 20th century that he uses the word “browers” to refer to customers, not internet software.

He told the BBC, “The decline, I actually think, happened about five or six years ago, when the major record shops stopped being greedy and started selling CDs much cheaper. CDs were a novelty when they first came out, 14 or 15 years ago. They were kept artificially high in price and there was a big differential between manufacturing costs and retail costs. Gradually a price war started and CDs became more and more affordable. Big companies like CBS started slashing prices on their major artists. You can buy a Springsteen or Dylan CD for £4.99 now, so why come to a second-hand shop? That’s really what started pulling the rug from under our feet.”

Of course, the reason there aren’t as many people browsing his shop is the death of the turntable. Those quirky forty-somethings might still have one around the house, playing Alice Cooper or Beethoven or some other old thing with the dusty snaps, crackles and pops of vinyl. Yet most music consumers are kids, and CDs are out of fashion for the iPod generation. To them, music is not a physical thing (album cover art notwithstanding) but a file of information. As David Bowie said a couple of years ago, “Music itself is going to become like running water or electricity,” that is, a commodity that is divorced from the existing means of distribution.

Some may regret that the record companies are now run by accountants, but the truth is the record companies stopped mattering some time ago. Technology has made home recording feasible, and the internet gives every garage band global distribution. This has freed musicians while bringing places like Beano to an end. The problem now becomes what to do if one is ever stuck in Croydon.

© Copyright 2006 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

Home