Now there are many things a beautiful Central European city like Prague can offer; 13th century bridges, grandiose castles, renaissance style streets, medieval markets, the list goes on really. Yet if its music records that you’re after, the city doesn’t disappoint either. Yours truly took time out to venture to 5 nicely varied record shops in Prague city centre to try and serve as a small guide for anyone foolhardy enough to take a break from sightseeing, beer drinking and absinthe sampling to search for Vinyl (and Compact Disk) joints instead.
Music Antiquariant – Národni 25, Prague 1
Placed in front of a huge graffiti daubed wall close to the National Theater, this place struck me as the main HMV/Aquarius store for LPs and second hand CDs in Prague. The Vinyl section is divided mostly under rock/pop and the other genres namely jazz, classical, reggae, punk, metal, Czech pop/rock and the amusingly tiny section labeled Black Music are scattered throughout the fringes of the store. Prices are modestly priced ranging from 100 Cz (€4/Rp. 56.000) to 400 Cz (€16/Rp. 230.000) which doesn’t include the discount area LPs and CDs which go from around €1/Rp. 14.000 each.
Disco Duck - Karlova 12, Prague 1
This is my favourite store in town just a stone’s throw away from the aforementioned 13th century bridge (Charles Bridge) with an impressive collection of alternative records comprising mostly of hip-hop, reggae, soul, nu-wave, rock, punk, techno, garage, break beats, and a cool selection of t-shirts and vinyl bags as addition. The collection is by no means complete but the records they do have are interesting and you could be surprised at some of the records they do have lying around. I bagged myself a 1982 Sugar Hill Gang 12” as if to prove the point.
The downside with any seemingly interesting small record shop are the prices which in Disco Duck’s case doesn’t drop much below 300 Cz (€13/Rp. 185.000) for a 12” single and 500Cz (€21/Rp. 300.000) for a full length LP.
Maximum Underground - Jilská 22, Prague 1
The name describes this store pretty well. It’s by no means a straight forward record store as it sells anything required by the underground youth culture of Prague ranging from clothing, footwear, body accessories, and of course CDs and LPs. The music section of the store is also mostly attributed to the hard techno, drum & bass, punk, grime, dancehall, house, garage, metal, gothic sounds and beats.
Bbarák Hip-Hop Shop - Vodičkova 41, Prague 1
Situated in a Blok M style mini-mall, this place does exactly what is says on the tin; it sells clothes, caps and other hip-hop paraphernalia which of course includes rap, crunk, Czech & Slovakian rap, trip-hop, reggae/dancehall, and break beat 12” singles and full length LPs. The LP section might only comprise of 7/8th of the entire store but as it’s quite genre specific the selection provided yielded surprises with quite a few 12” singles from rap classics like Wu-Tang’s Protect Ya Neck, Jeru The Damaja’s D’Original to name but two. Prices are also reasonable ranging from 150 Cz (€6/Rp. 84.000) to 500Cz (€21/Rp. 300.000).
Black Point Music - Zlatnická 6, Prague 1
This small and cozy little record store with a friendly shop keeper is located on a small street in the tourist free area of Prague whose selection of LPs and CDs mostly comprise of good alternative rock/folk, blues and jazz. It also features an eerie yet surprisingly welcoming poster of Tom Waits on the window and his music is heavily represented in the vinyl section of this store. Black Point is also official distributor of Fat Possum Records, a Mississippi based blues rock revivalist record label with artists like The Black Keys and Solomon Burke in full supply in this particular store. It also has a cool selection of jazz LPs with my fantastically priced 100 Cz (€4/Rp. 56.000) full length 12” of human drum machine jazz legend Billy Cobham’s Supraphon (‘74) purchased here.
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