Vinyl Villains

Vinyl Villains has traded from the same corner of Elm Row since 1983 under the same ownership throughout, making it one of the longest-running record shops in the city. The stock is almost entirely second-hand, spanning rock, punk, soul, reggae, jazz, blues and folk, with vinyl taking up most of the floor alongside smaller sections of CDs, DVDs and music books. Staff buy collections directly from sellers, offering home visits for anyone with too many records to carry in, and pricing stock by condition and rarity rather than a fixed catalogue. Regulars describe it as a place to dig rather than browse quickly, since the shelving is dense and only loosely organised by genre. The shop keeps standard daily hours and does not sell online.