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art/books/music/video

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Stephen Manley
B-Side Records
436 State St.
Madison, WI 53703

608.255.1977


b-sidemadison.com

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Product/Service

B-Side presents a custom array of music, including weekly new releases, classic oldies, critically acclaimed and unusual titles in nearly every genre and style. Our customers appreciate our attention to genres like jazz, rock (indie and classic), world music, blues, reggae, folk, hip-hop, and avant garde. Nearly all our stock is factory sealed, unused and guaranteed. Our knowledgeable, helpful staff have decades of experience here and are happy to make suggestions and/or special order anything not currently in stock. Our reputation and selection have earned numerous "Favorite Music Shop" polls and awards for over a quarter century.

Buying Local

We take pride in our local roots and focus, having become a vital part of the music community here since the early 1980's... our "Local Music" section is not only the most extensive in Madison, but we prominently feature it front and center in our shop next to the checkout counter. We wish to foster a thriving local music environment by spotlighting it in this way, to boost awareness of the talent in our midst. We also facilitate the live music scene by selling concert tickets without any service fees, and reserve plenty of free display space to hang up gig posters for local shows.

History

Our little State Street shop was created by two record store clerks from Ann Arbor who decided that Madison would be the ideal place to open their own music store in the fall of 1982. At the time, compact discs had not yet been introduced to the market, so the pinewood bins and wall displays were designed for the vinyl LPs and cassettes of the time. Less than a year later, CDs started coming in and over the years cassettes and LPs faded away and the bins and racks were refitted for compact discs. In a twist no one predicted back in the late '90s, vinyl LPs are staging a comeback, and B-Side is once again home to hundreds of titles on LP. This ties in to the original old handmade, "mom & pop" style and non-corporate feel of the shop.