Back in the day (as you’ll recall), when you bought an LP, you were usually buying a pig in a poke. Often there was no way to hear the songs (aside from a hit single or two) before plunking down your money.
So many visits to record stores in search of new music, only to wind up scrutinizing album covers…
What a useful thing listening booths in record stores would have been back then!
I read of their existence a few times, but I never came across one in person in the U.S.
The only time I can remember seeing one was in the Tower Records at Picadilly Circus in London. Mid-1980s, I think. It was a stand with headphones. The selection of tracks was limited to the most popular hits, which kind of defeated the purpose.
How about you? Ever find a listening booth in a record store? If so, when and where was it? Could you listen to any record in the store, or just a selected few?
I believe it was Borders (but maybe B&N) that used to have spots where you could put on headphones, scan the barcode of a CD and listen to 30-45sec snippets of each track. I think that went away as they largely eliminated their music sections.
Toronto, mid-1970s; I forget the store–it may have been Sam the Record Man, which was a big, popular store, but I don’t recall if it had booths or if I’m thinking of another store
I don’t remember the name of the store, but in the late '70s a friend of mine worked in a record store that had one. There was a time limit, though - they wouldn’t let you sit in there for two days listening to the whole Ring Cycle
Me too! Every couple of weeks, they’d send an email with a 40% Off One Item coupon. This was right as the remastered Beatles CDs started coming out, so I took advantage of that.
I was thinking about the Beatles because that’s my only image: '60s British kids cramming into listening booths to hear the latest merseybeat records.
In the late 1990s there was Blockbuster Music. If you found a CD you wanted to audition, you could take it to a central bank of listening stations and hand it to a clerk. They would unwrap the CD and pop it into a player so you could listen to whatever tracks you wanted. When you were done they would put the CD back into the jewel case and shrink-wrap it again. Not sure how widespread Blockbuster Music was, I was only familiar with their store in Tucson.
walmart had a couple … as did the warehouse which did become blockbuster music and yeah it was just a stand with headphones but all they played was about 60-90 second edited clips of the songs in a loop
I never was in a store that had actual booths, but other means of pre-listening to records: in one of my favorite record stores around the 80s, you could go with any LP you were interested in to the counter and ask if you could play it. The clerk would show you to a record player in the back of the store with headphones where you could listen to it at your convenience. And a bit later in the 90s, the stores of a popular chain, Saturn, had some kind of listening carousel cabinets with CD players and outside headphones equipped with the latest releases. The players were behind acrylic glass, but there were outside panels to control them.
Not quite the same, but in my student days (we’re talking the seventies here) our local independent record store would constantly be playing whatever was interesting. If you found something promising that you knew nothing about, you would just go up to the desk and ask them to put it on. That way the whole store got to hear it.
At Borders Books and Music, before they started gutting the music section, there were stations throughout where you could scan the barcode on a CD and listen to bits of it on headphones.
I came in to mention Blockbuster as well. They were also in Southern California. I believe they entered that market by buying out the Music+ chain. Not an individual booth, but a central counter with a bank of headphones. You had complete control over the playback - skip, replay, fast forward - but didn’t touch the CD once you handed it over unless you decided you wanted to buy it.
I remember a Monty Python sketch where the introduction was a man walking into a record shop asking if any of the listening booths were playing the Ronettes.
Clerk: “We’ve got World War One Noises in number four.”
Man: “Is that the Ronettes?”
Clerk: “No, the French and the Germans, I think…”
Man: “Oh, all right…”
Oh, found it! But without that intro… though later, the record starts skipping and folderol ensues as the man tries to get it fixed. Eventually, they restart the record in booth five… or IS it the same record? Hmmm…
Thanks. I was just visitor to Toronto in those days, hanging out in book and record stores, and for various reasons, some of it is a blur. I forget if I was passing through on my way to or from Woodstock…
When I first started buying albums in the late 60s the record store had listening booths with headphones. I was working in a building site in the summer holidays at the time. Since an LP cost about 10% of my weekly wage the listening booth was essential for any speculative purchase.
I remember one store where anyone could try out 45s. No listening room, just a handful of turntables with a single little speaker you could hold up to your ear. This was the 1960s in Bethesda MD. This model didn’t last much longer, within a few years 45s seemed to disappear.
. It was a pity - I kinda liked peak Borders, but they declined a fair bit before finally collapsing.