Record Stores in Toronto

A useful Toronto record-shopping day starts with a choice: cover several Queen West shops, spend time with the Annex's records and CDs, or head directly to a specialist. The stores in this guide range from Sonic Boom's broad physical-media selection to Play De Record's DJ roots and Emissions' punk focus. Use the format and genre filters to choose the shelves you actually want to browse before deciding how far to travel.

Queen and Spadina make a practical starting point. Sonic Boom is on Spadina, with Kops and Cosmos along Queen West. Cosmos has two nearby rooms covered in one guide. Invisible City is in Chinatown Centre's outdoor lower courtyard, so its street address needs a little more attention than an ordinary storefront. Keep these central stops together, then decide whether a farther west shop belongs in the same afternoon.

For CDs, BMV in the Annex and She Said Boom on College offer reasons to look beyond vinyl. Dead Dog's Bloor shop is farther west in Bloordale, rather than beside the Annex stores; its other branch is on Church Street. Pandemonium in the Junction and She Said Boom on Roncesvalles extend that physical-media browse westward, but they are separate neighborhood legs. Pop Music on Broadview and Kops on the Danforth belong on an east-side plan rather than a rushed cross-city loop.

The guide distinguishes new releases, used stock and collection-buying policies. A store that sells used records does not automatically buy every format, and several specialists concentrate on vinyl. Read the individual buying section before carrying a collection across town. For a day that ends at a concert, the existing venue guides provide the next useful step: the Horseshoe and Rivoli fit a Queen West plan, while Lee's Palace connects naturally with Bloor. Check each shop's current hours at the linked official source before setting out.