Relics Records: Owner of 35-year-old Leeds music shop on ‘great revival’ of CDs - and top-selling albums

Ian Feasy, who has owned Relics Records in Leeds for 35 years, said his shop was seeing an increasing number of customers through the doors in search of CDs - particularly classics.

The 64-year-old first opened his vinyl and CD shop on New Briggate in 1990, after working in a record store in London.

He told the Yorkshire Evening Post said: “The market has definitely regenerated. It used to be that kids in their 20s and 30s wouldn’t have a CD collection - they’d just stream music [online].

“But now we’re getting more and more in, buying CDs.”

Relics Records has around 6,000 CDs for sale in its extensive collection. Its owner described buying music online as a “soulless experience”.

Ian said: “There’s three of us in here [members of staff] and we’re friendly and we like to talk to people.

“You might find something here you’ve never heard before and you’re not going to get that experience from an algorithm.

“People say retail is dead, but buying online is a soulless experience.”

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There is a huge range of genres of music and artists available in the store’s collection.

The shop also sells high-quality “obi strip” Japanese CDs, so-called because they mimic kimono designs.

And Ian said the most sought-after CDs were from a bygone era.

“Stuff like The Beatles, the Stones, LED Zeppelin, Bob Dylan, that sort of stuff,” he said.

“And that’s what young people are buying too. We don’t sell a lot of new artists.”

He added: “We were here before the big CD boom, during it and now we're here for the great revival”.

The shop’s top selling CD albums were:

The Beach Boys – Pet Sounds

Pink Floyd – Dark Side of the Moon

David Bowie – The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars

The Smiths – Meat is Murder

Pixies – Trompe Le Monde

Joy Division – Unknown Pleasures

Jimi Hendrix – Axis: Bold as Love

Bob Dylan - Desire

The Beatles – Revolver

BBC 6 Music-backed Record Store Day, according to the organisers’ website, is “the one day of the year when almost 300 independent record shops all across the UK come together to celebrate their unique culture”.