London Drugs Has Father’s Day Covered

This post is written by the member of our family who holds the prestigious ‘dad’ title. Frank is an avid vinyl collector and an even more avid father.

I’ve found a new place to buy records in the most unexpected of places. London Drugs. Yes, you read that right. London Drugs.

Anyone who knows me, or gets within earshot of me, knows of my love for music, and specifically, vinyl. I’ve been collecting records for years. When I travel, my first stop is always the local record shop. I frequent local record stores, flea markets and second-hand shops on a regular basis looking for LPs. Amazon and EBay are bookmarked on my computer. My collection of records numbers about 700 – all cleaned, bagged and alphabetized. I also regularly sell used vinyl – mostly my duplicates. The proceeds help fund my addiction… scratch that, I mean vinyl-collecting hobby.

I thought I knew all the best places in town to buy records, that is, until recently. Imagine my surprise when I learned London Drugs has quietly been building up their record section. They have a great cross section of LPs for sale – everything from staples like the Beatles, Rolling Stone and Jimi Hendrix, to metal (Iron Maiden) grunge (Nirvana), modern rock (Black Keys, Coldplay), 80s pop (The Cars) and beyond. They also had a decent selection of picture disks, box sets and even a couple of cool seven-inch singles. I was impressed with their selection. Kudos to whoever is responsible for purchasing.

On a recent trip to the West Edmonton Mall London Drugs location I picked up Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here and Audioslave’s Out of Exile. I grabbed these for a few reasons. The Floyd LP came with some very cool inserts (shown below), including a poster, postcard and download card (to get a free digital version of this classic release).

Audioslave came on two, blue-coloured LPs. Both of these are instant collectibles. Total cost for the records was a reasonable $50 (about $30 for Floyd and $20 for Audioslave). Putting these LPs on my turntable, I was also very impressed with the pressings. They were quiet (no pops or crackles), scuff-free and warp-free.

Bottom line? I will definitely go record shopping at London Drugs again. And with Father’s Day around the corner, you may want to consider this as well. What better gift to give the dad in your life but some records to build or start his collection. Vinyl, after all, is back, and it sounds great.

Disclosure: Two vinyl records were received from London Drugs in order to complete this feature. The opinions in this post are those of the writer and are not influenced by outside factors.

Sheri Landry

Sheri publishes, and writes at This Bird’s Day where she shares all of the thoughts in her head without the voices. Sticking mainly with content for Canadians, Sheri shares family stories, product information and anything that fits into her (and her family’s) daily activities.

www.thisbirdsday.com