Wednesday, June 15, 2016

Fopp: top for pop

Another day, another new record shop - this time in Oxford. Hot on the heels of the recent opening of Bella Union's store in Brighton comes the news that Fopp will return to Oxford, eight years after shutting their Gloucester Green shop and two years after parent company HMV left town.

The announcement was greeted less than enthusiastically by Ronan Munro, editor of Oxford-based music mag Nightshift (and our guest on Episode 5 of Sounding Bored, when we discussed local record shops, among other things): "In some ways Fopp will provide competition for Truck on Cowley Road. People who want to pick up an Adele album won't necessarily want to make the trip to Truck." Of course, this assumes that the new shop will be located in the city centre rather than in the immediate vicinity of Truck. You'd hope there's room for a second record shop in Oxford and certainly that Fopp's return doesn't eat into Truck's business; geographical proximity (albeit unlikely) could potentially be a fatal blow for Truck.

(Thanks to Matt for the link.)

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