Digital plays swan song for Plymouth’s Revolution
PLYMOUTH — It’s last call at Revolution, and the end of an era for Plymouth.
Revolution, one of the area’s last surviving record stores, will close its doors for good this fall. It is likely that Plymouth will never get another business that buys and sells LPs, 45s, videos, and DVDs.
Owner Jim Murphy, along with the rest of us, witnessed the evolution from vinyl records to 8-tracks to cassette tapes and compact discs.
But the latest change
in format — the ability to download music directly from the Internet — has changed the very concept of shopping for music. The availability of MP3s and other digital music undermines the business model of bricks-and-mortar music stores like his.
“I woke up one day, and thought to myself, being the last record store in Massachusetts probably isn’t the best ambition,” said Murphy, 44. “You can see the way it’s going . . . and it’s not good.”
Murphy has been running Revolution for nine years. He’s a diehard music fan, with a personal collection of vinyl that has grown to 1,800 albums.
Before opening his shop, he worked at other local record stores, and was the manager of Quincy Records and Tapes.
“There used to be one of these stores in every town . . . maybe every other town,” he said.
In the past decade, dozens of record stores have closed. Tower Records no longer occupies the corner of Newbury Street and Massachusetts Avenue in Boston; it was replaced by Virgin Megastore, and now it’s a Best Buy. Newbury Comics has stores in Avon, Braintree, and Kingston, but they’re filled with more comic books and pop culture knickknacks than actual music.
Murphy wonders about the current state of the music industry, and how young people are selecting their music.
He remembers exactly when and where he purchased specific albums. He wonders how the next generation will feel the same connection to their music. “Years from now, kids are going to remember when they downloaded a song?” he said. He muses about how many singles he was introduced to by listening to records from beginning to end.
Local businesses are sorry to see Revolution closing.
“I feel badly about it,” said Diane Thomson, manager of Main Street Antiques and Main Street Marketplace. “I’d hate to see another empty storefront in downtown Plymouth — we already have a few.” Main Street Antiques does not specialize in music, but it does sell some LPs.
Sarah Angley, the manager of British Beer Company, the pub directly next door to Revolution, purchased her Guns N’ Roses, White Stripes, and Velvet Revolver albums from Murphy.
Customers of British Beer Company frequented the little record shop next door, she said.
“I’ve had customers leave here, go to Revolution, and come back, asking us to play their new CD,” she said. Revolution “was unique,” she said. “We’re definitely sad to see him go.”
Revolution’s slogan is simple: “All the music that matters.” The shop is at 47 Main St., smack in the middle of downtown Plymouth.
It has one of the more unusual storefronts in town. A nattily dressed mannequin, wearing a black-and-white patterned suit and dark sunglasses, sits in the store’s front window next to a hulking brown-and-beige 1950s-era Columbia record player. On top of this behemoth music machine sits a statue of Nipper, the little white dog from the RCA Records logo, and two martini glasses (a large one for the mannequin, and a tiny one for Nipper). The storefront windows also display vintage album covers, like the soundtrack to Elvis’s 1960 film “G.I. Blues,” and the classic local anthem “Dirty Water” by The Standells.
Inside the store, the walls are painted a bright pink and covered in band posters. Albums from The Specials and Mission of Burma are also displayed on the walls. A gray plastic crate sits by the front door, full of photos. There were black-and-white images of Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen for sale. A movie poster promoting the 1968 film “Speedway” shows Nancy Sinatra in white go-go boots shimmying alongside Elvis Presley and emblazoned with the slogan “smooth, fast and in high gear.”
On a recent afternoon, Duran Duran’s hit “Girls on Film” was playing over the speakers. Six customers stood flipping through plastic CDs. Several had gray hair; another man was dressed in a shirt and tie.
The shop has plenty of VHS videocassettes, such as the “Lionel Richie: the Making of Dancing on the Ceiling” tape that apparently goes behind the scenes of his 1986 music video. The basement is packed with boxes of vinyl records from artists such as Madonna, David Bowie, and New Order. Each album is in a clear plastic sleeve.
Murphy, who lives in Wareham, said he doesn’t have any plans for what he’ll do after the store closes. “This is all I’ve ever done,” he said.
Right now he is focused on liquidating his inventory. He’s marked down his merchandise 33 percent.
He said he still gets calls from people looking to unload their albums. Even though he’s a businessman trying to clear out his store, he’s still a music fan at heart — he always tells them to come down so he can look.
“You never know what you could find,” he said, laughing.