Surviving diamonds in a rough trade

Sorry for being awkward, but all those soi-disant industry analysts who were firmly predicting the end of ye olde record shop have all gone a bit quiet lately.

Remember the mantra: downloads are so here and now and so unbelievably fabtastic that no one in their right mind will be arsed to trek to a record shop any more when they can have their music delivered direct to their computer.

The Jeremiahs' jeremiads were spectacularly wrong. The record shop is still present and correct. Granted, the global chains did take a bit of a hit from internet sales but the independent record shops remain in rude, if not sarcastic, good health.

What wasn't factored into the "downloads will kill the record shop" supposition was the culture of the record shop. People don't just buy albums in the shops - they hang out, they browse, they talk, they ask for - and give - advice. Perhaps most importantly, bands are formed in record shops - countless numbers of them.

People hear stuff being played in record shops that they would never hear on radio or TV (or bloody iTunes) and enquire more and are guided to music that simply would never have registered with them before. Talk to any knowledgeable record shop employee and you'll have your musical verticals and horizontal shifted.

The best-known independent record shop on this side of the Atlantic remains the Rough Trade record shop. They've just brought out an album to celebrate their 30th year in business and even a cursory glance at the track-listing tells you everything you need to know about just how important and influential a record shop can be.

When it began in 1976 in London's Notting Hill, it was a real curio. They had stuff called "imports" and what seemed like thousands of records all classified under the title "dub reggae". Because of the early punk/reggae interface, the shop became a magnet for the early punk scenesters. And you didn't just go for the records; they had mad things called fanzines - all of them badly put together but bursting with a rare sense of polemical musical righteousness.

Because so many people with musical ideas were hanging out in this haven, the shop decided to set up a record label (many people think the shop followed the label, it didn't). Rough Trade Records was basically an in-house label for the shop's customers.

After five years, the shop and the label went their separate ways (with no little acrimony). The label went on to sign some band called The Smiths.

The shop went on to open a second London store and open branches in Paris and Tokyo.

You look at it now and you see a label with The Smiths on their roster and a weird little record shop totally overstretching itself and you would have been certain it was the latter that went bust. It wasn't - the shops grew and grew and the label went bust (it's now resurrected).

Because they couldn't be more indie if they tried, the shop responded to the download threat by opening up its own bespoke "Album Club". Briefly, this means that anyone, anywhere in the world can e-mail the shop and go through the sort of music they like. The incredibly informative staff then rack their brains and come up with new albums suggestions tailored to your taste. It's the sort of thing Amazon tries to do on its crappy site but always gets so tragically wrong.

For its 30th anniversary album release, the shop decided to ask some of its best-known customers to suggest a track and the resultant work is spread over two high-class CDs. Those customers include Björk, Jarvis Cocker, LCD Soundsystem, Bobby Gillespie and one Geoff Travis. The tracks selected include music by The Soft Boys, Afrika Bambaataa, Stock, Hausen and Walkman and The Carter Family. It's a fascinating thrall through the last three decades of independent music and comes highly recommended.

30 Years of Rough Trade Shops is on the V2 label