Beatdown Records

Beatdown Records on Clayton Street in Newcastle Upon Tyne was voted the North East’s best record shop by Galaxy Radio listeners in 2008.

In the face of a national economic crisis and a music industry driven by internet sales we spoke to Beatdown’s co-owner, Paul, to discuss the future of Newcastle’s record stores.

Paul has experience working in HMV as well as independent record shops, and is well aware of the problems the music trade faces in this age of digitalisation.

Personal Service

Despite competition from multimillion pound music retailers, Paul said traditional record stores still have their appeal.

“I think you get a bit more of a personal service in here than you do in HMV but that’s because we’ve done it for a long time and it’s more important to us” he said.

History

Following the closure of two of Newcastle’s record shops, Alt Vinyl and Old Hits, last year, Paul said what was once a thriving independent record store scene is now becoming history and he stressed the importance of reinvention.

He said: “You don’t want to let the shop stagnate in any way. You’ve got to keep stock moving.”

Online

Business for independent record stores has been hit by the increasing availability of music online but Paul said they were starting to come to terms with it:

 “The initial impact [of online downloading] was probably the biggest thing but it’s sort of settled down a bit and we know what we’re getting with it now.”

In fact, Beatdown have managed to tap into the booming online marketplace and now have much of their stock listed on Amazon.

Paul said the trade they do on the web was key to their survival: “without the Internet sales we wouldn’t be here now and neither would any of the [record] shops.”