X Records

Steve Meekings opened X Records in 1985, initially from a converted post office next to Bolton College before the shop moved to its current Bridge Street unit in the early 1990s. Stock runs across two levels, with new vinyl, CDs and DVDs upstairs and a basement given over to used vinyl sorted by genre, from punk and ska to soul and jazz, plus a turntable at the back of the hip-hop section so buyers can test a record before purchase. The shop has kept trading through the closure of most of Bolton's other music retailers over the same period, relying on mail order and worldwide shipping to supplement counter sales. It stocks Record Store Day exclusives and coloured-vinyl pressings alongside its secondhand racks, rather than treating new and used stock as separate businesses.