The Top 10 Records Sold Last Week at Strider Records and Collectibles in the West Village

In 2009, the traditional practice of exchanging physical copies of records for money is a trade that might best be called quixotic. But New Yorkers are stubborn people, and the record store is not dead. Below, the top ten records that sold in the last week at a store near you.

Strider Records and Collectibles sits on Jones Street, the narrow road Bob Dylan once stood on for the cover photo of his second LP, The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan. “I must get asked to take people’s photo there 50 times a year,” says owner Bob Noguera, 52. “It’s like Abbey Road.” (Freewheelin‘ is one of Strider’s top sellers). Strider’s has a musty, eye-watering atmosphere that feels straight out of your grandmothers old attic. Like an attic, there’s a lot of random stuff: some 1940s Zenith AM radios, an Alice Cooper School’s Out gold record, and seashells hanging all over the place. The location has made it a central spot for affluent musicians who hang out in the area. Noguera has served customers like Tom Petty, who perused Billie Holiday records past midnight, Shel Silverstein, who was a calypso music aficionado, and Johnny Cash, who often came in to buy his own records to give to friends since he didn’t own any himself. Oh, and about the seashells? “My girlfriend is really into nautical stuff,” Noguera says. “I agreed to let her store a bunch of stuff here.”

The Top 10 Records Sold at Strider Records and Collectables for the Week Ending September 25, 2009:

• 1. The Beatles:

The White Album

• 2. Bob Dylan:

The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan

• 3. James Brown:

Live at the Apollo

• 4. Queen: Everything “A guy came in and bought everything last week. It doesn’t seem to matter what album with them.”

• 5. Tom Waits:

Heart Attack and Vine

• 6. Kiss:

Alive

• 7. The Smiths: Everything. “I can’t think of the albums,” ..Noguera says, “but everything I get flies out of here.”

• 8. Miles Davis:

Bitches Brew

• 9. John Coltrane:

A Love Supreme

• 10. Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention:

Lumpy Gravy

Strider Records and Collectibles is located at 22 Jones Street, New York, NY. It’s open Monday through Saturday, noon to 7 p.m.