Scouring the Square for Cheap Tunes

When Tower Records and HMV opened giant outlets in Cambridge everyone worried that the grungy, groovy hole-in-the-wall record shops that give the Square a college town atmosphere would fold under pressure from the big, slick high-tech chains.

So far, most of the tiny mon-an-pop places have survived. And the increased competition has forced the prices so low that music is one of the few affordable commodities available in Cambridge.

Tower (95 Mt. Auburn) and HMV (in Brattle Square) are predictably huge, sleek and impersonal. Each offers a gargantuan selection of rock, classical, jazz and international music at decent prices, with popular albums regularly priced at $10.99.

Both stores feature high-tech diversions that make shopping there almost like visiting an amusement park. HMV's dungeonesque foyer boasts a television wall pulsing with non-stop videos. Inside you can listen to new albums on headsets. There's even an in-house dee-jay perched in an elevated glass "WHMV" booth at the back of the store. Tower rivals these delights with its touch-screen directories that instantly locate obscure titles. Recycling bins for CD cases and wrappers appease the ecologically-minded.

Newbury Comics (upstairs at the Garage on JFK Street) offers a less flashy shopping experience, but it does win the price wars, with hit CDs always on sale for $10.77. In addition to an excellent selection of alternative and classical CDs, the store sells a wide range of posters, T-shirts and comic books.

This neon-walled store is also the best place to pick up mainstream and underground rock magazines. On one shelf you can find the latest issues of Rolling Stone and Creem as well as more specialized journals like Eat Your Skin and Spiral Scratch.

Truly discriminating music buffs should check out Briggs and Briggs (corner of Mass. Ave. and Plympton Street) for its pricey but extensive classical and international sections. Sheet music, musical scores, and opera librettos for shower stall divas are also available.

Taang! Records (12 Eliot St.) is a dream come true for music fans who like to thrash. This dimly lit shop, appropriately located underground, has a wide selection of local hardcore music, as well as some classic ska albums. Plenty of morbid T-shirts are also for sale, along with posters for not-quite-Top-40 bands like Caucasian Psychos and Kill For Satan.

In Your Ear, a basement shop on Mount Auburn St., is another good place for cheap new and used underground rock. The selection of indie label music and imported vinyl is also impressive.

Strawberry Records, Discount Records and the Coop are the other local shops. They all offer adequate but unremarkable selections. Of the three, the Coop is probably the best deal, with hits at $10.99 and frequent sales.

Real bargains await adventurous shoppers who are willing to make the trek for wild music and low prices. A short walk along Mass Ave toward Central Square will bring you to Mystery Train Records (1208 Mass. Ave.), a tiny shop crammed with good new and used music on vinyl, CD and cassette at bargain rates.

A little farther down the street, at 1105 Mass. Ave., Second Coming Records is an earthly paradise of new and used music. Second Coming is particularly strong on alternative rock. You can also browse through music videos and a dizzying array of limited edition collections' singles, posters, stickers and T-shirts.

Loony Tunes, a block away (1101 Mass. Ave.), is worth visiting just to see the window display of vintage album covers: Peggy Lee's "I Like Men" album and a '50s recording of Armenian wedding music highlight the collection. inside are tons of new and used vinyl records and CDs at surprisingly low prices, including hundreds of old classical recordings for a mere 99 cents.

True musical die-hards will put in the time to keep walking to Central Square, where the appropriately named Cheap-O Records is located (645 Mass. Ave.). This is the real thing, the grand-daddy of used music stores.

A quick perusal of the section names gives a hint of the broad scope offered here: Rock, Zydeco, New Orleans Rockin' Rhythm and Blues, Country, Cajun, Tex-Max, American Indian, Blues Women, Dixieland, Big Band, Swamp, Comedy and Boogie all get separate bins. This is surely one of the few places in the world where you can find an old vinyl recording of "Song of the Suffragettes" along with easy listening anthologies and used Thompson Twins CDs.

All this plus a suitably shabby, hole-in-the-wall atmosphere. So there's no need to fret about a lack of personality in the record stores in Cambridge. Whether your idea of fun is a mega-store with plenty of special effect or a delightfully sweaty antique-hunters' corner, you'll find it here.