Other Music Nyc Set For Closure

Other Music in New York have announced their imminent closure on the 25th of June. After just over 20 years of business in East Village, the beloved record shop are forced to close their doors. An ongoing decline physical music sales and the hiking prices of rent have proved a lethal combination for yet another outpost of independent music in the city.

Speaking to the New York Times, co-owner Josh Madell insisted that it wasn’t because of a lack of business that they were finally closing their doors.

“We still do a ton of business — probably more than most stores in the country. It’s just the economics of it actually supporting us — we don’t see a future in it. We’re trying to step back before it becomes a nightmare.”

The cause of Other Music’s closure appears to be a combination of the rise in popularity of online streaming, paired with a steep increase in the cost of renting a physical space in New York’s inner city. Although vinyl’s resurgence in the past decade looks as if it could be many independent stores’ salvation, it’s no match for the surge in property pricing pushing much of the underground music scene from Manhattan.

Owner Madell also pointed to the effects the internet has had on record store culture. Where once you would have to physically show up to a store to listen to a record and purchase it if you then liked it, now much of those interactions can be done online.

Other Music’s credibility lay in not only its wide and varied stock, but the diverse knowledge base of its staff. They established intimate connections with other local bands and labels, often housing events inside their doors. This small store outlived its larger, more commercial peers on the block. It was positioned opposite Tower records and a Virgin Megastore both of which had closed down by 2009.

Now Other Music will follow the trend in this part of New York. Other Music Recording Co., a label associated with the store since 2012, will continue to produce releases in the future.