Record stores in Newcastle upon Tyne

Record shops reward the patient digger. Newcastle upon Tyne, England has 18 mapped right now. That's 18 record shops mapped around Newcastle upon Tyne. Every shop grades and prices differently, so the same record can be a bargain in one and a splurge in another — dig everywhere. Check the grading before you pay — a visual grade and a play grade are two different things.

This guide covers every record store we could verify in and around Newcastle upon Tyne (within about 40 km), built from OpenStreetMap's community-maintained data. Names you'll run into include Air Guitars and Snap! Records, plus First for Music. If a record shop's missing from Newcastle upon Tyne's list, it probably just hasn't been mapped yet.

The Newcastle upon Tyne record lineup

18 mapped within about 40 km:

What the map tells us about record stores in Newcastle upon Tyne

2 of the 18 list their opening hours on the map, which is genuinely useful — record shops keep shop hours, so the listed times are usually reliable.

7 have websites listed. Worth a look for new-arrival posts and want-list services.

There's a cluster: 2 of them sit on Market Place, so you can string those into one walk and drive between the rest.

The Newcastle upon Tyne record crawl

Making a day of it in Newcastle upon Tyne? Work this order: Air Guitars, Snap! Records on 20 Market Street, First for Music, Hot Rats Records on Mary Street, HMV on The Bridges Shopping Centre, HMV on 28 Blackettbridge, Reflex on 23 Nun Street, and Mama Roux Records on Whitley Road. That's the record crawl in one sensible loop, no backtracking. 10 more are listed below.

Record digging tips for Newcastle upon Tyne

How the regulars work Newcastle upon Tyne's bins:

• Check for box sets at Air Guitars. Box sets get broken up or sold whole; either way the per-record price is often excellent.
• Note the shop's specialties at Snap! Records. Every shop leans somewhere — soul, punk, jazz, classical. Find the lean that matches yours, then dig the others anyway.
• Sleeves matter for value. Original inner sleeves, inserts, posters — completeness counts. A bare record in a generic sleeve is worth less.
• Learn your labels. Certain labels mean certain quality. A quick education in the labels of your favourite genres pays off fast.

Good to know

We searched about 40 km around Newcastle upon Tyne — that covers the town itself plus the surrounding communities you'd reasonably drive to. Listings come from OpenStreetMap, mapped by local volunteers, so a brand-new record store in Newcastle upon Tyne can take a while to appear. Spotted a closure among the 18, or a record store we missed entirely? The map is the source of truth here — one OpenStreetMap edit corrects it for everyone.

We don't list prices or stock — both change by the day. What we list is the where: real shops, verified by real mappers.

If you run one of the 18 listed here and something's wrong — a closure, a move, new hours — the fix is the same: update the shop on OpenStreetMap and the correction flows through to this page on the next daily refresh.