THE ONLY WAY INTO Cloverdale Mall is through a parking lot. Here, in the Toronto suburb of Etobicoke, the world of retail is languid and sprawling, with a noticeably older demographic than in its downtown equivalents. A walk through the one-storey mall will take you past discount clothing outlets and an all-but-forgotten bookstore chain. Around a corner, past a Chinese food stall called Pick 'N' Chus, is a familiar red and black sign: SUNRISE.
A series of mostly unadorned shelves are packed with DVDs, vinyl records, and CDs organized by genre: punk, metal, jazz, blues, and hip hop. Near the front is a slogan: "Canada's Record Store."
A similar Sunrise Records once sat on Yonge Street, right in the heart of the city. The homegrown retail chain was part of a string of major record stores such as Sam the Record Man and HMV Canada, plus independents such as Play De Record. Those shops all disappeared from Yonge over the past few decades, along with the other big Canadian chains Music World and A&A, pushed out by major shifts in how music is distributed and consumed: digitally, on file-sharing sites such as Napster, on the iTunes store, and eventually on streaming giants like Spotify and Apple Music, or ordered for delivery online. But Sunrise, first launched in 1977, is still around, though it no longer has a home in downtown Toronto. "I've had people telling me that record stores are closing for probably ten or fifteen years now," says Robert Lawson, the store manager at the Cloverdale location for much of its twenty-year history. "Well, we're still here, and I'm still here. So I think, as long as they're still making CDs and making records, there will still be room for record stores."
Denne historien er fra JanFeb 2024-utgaven av The Walrus.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent ? Logg på
Denne historien er fra JanFeb 2024-utgaven av The Walrus.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på
Dream Machines - The real threat with artificial intelligence is that we'll fall prey to its hype
Some of the world's largest companies, including Microsoft, Meta, and Alphabet, are throwing their full weight behind AI. On top of the billions spent by big tech, funding for AI startups hit nearly $50 billion (US) in 2023.
MY GUILTY PLEASURE
MY CHILDREN are grown, with their own partners, their own lives.
The Quest to Decode Vermeer's True Colours
New techniques reveal hidden details in the Dutch master’s paintings
Repeat after Me
TikTok and Instagram are helping to bring Indigenous languages back from the brink
Smokehouse
I WAS STANDING THERE at the corner, the corner where the smaller street intersects with the slightly wider one.
How Could They Just Lose Him?
The Huronia Regional Centre was supposed to be a safe home for people with disabilities. Then, amid suspicions of abuse at the facility, twenty-one-year-old Robin Windross vanished without a trace
Prairie Radical
How conspiracy theorists splintered a small town
Eeny, Meeny, Miny, Moe
Scott Moe rose quietly through the ranks. Now the Saskatchewan premier and his party are shaping policies with national consequences
The Accommodation Problem
Extensions. Extra exam time. Online everything. Addressing the complex needs of students is creating chaos on campus
MY GUILTY PLEASURE
I WAS AS SURPRISED as anyone when I became obsessed with comics again last year, at the advanced age of forty-five. As a kid, I loved reading G.I. Joe and The Amazing Spider-Man.