Charlotte Amalie, US Virgin Islands
Eddy's Record Shop
2101 Strand Gade, Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas, VI 00802
Record shopping in US Virgin Islands
The US Virgin Islands' record scene is small enough to walk in an afternoon, but its three shops sit at the crossroads of Caribbean music in the Americas. Charlotte Amalie on St. Thomas is the focal point: Modern Music has been operating since 1987 under Chrys Hansen and is often called the most-visited record store in the Caribbean, Music Shoppe II at Havensight Mall carries reggae, calypso, and steel pan alongside instruments and live in-store performances, and Eddy's Record Shop sits walking distance from the cruise port for sailors and travelers who want a record before they board. The local music tells the bigger story: quelbe with its scratch bands is the territory's national sound, bamboula drumming runs back to the West Africans brought to the Danish West Indies before 1917, and St. Thomas and St. John's spring carnivals keep calypso, soca, and reggae in heavy rotation. Cruise into Charlotte Amalie, follow the steel pan from the waterfront inland, and see what the Virgin Islands have been holding behind the counter.
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BEYOND THE US VIRGIN ISLANDS: VINYL JOURNEYS FROM CHARLOTTE AMALIE
As the stylus lifts in Charlotte Amalie, every shop you walked through today is just one pocket of a much bigger Caribbean network. The trade winds, the cruise routes, and the daily flights in and out of STT keep music moving across every island, and the next dig is rarely more than a ferry or a flight away.
Puerto Rico Record Stores: Cruise west to Puerto Rico, where San Juan's Viera, OYE, and Electroshock keep 180,000-LP-deep salsa, jazz, and Latin trap stacks rotating, El Discotecario digs into salsa, boogaloo, and disco on Calle Cerra, and the island's bomba and reggaeton lineages stay close to every counter.
Florida Record Stores: Fly northwest to Florida, where Miami's Sweat Records carries the city's Latin and bass lineage, Orlando's growing Caribbean shops stock reggae and reggaeton deep, and Tampa Bay's veteran stores hold heavy psych and Florida death-metal pressings.
New York Record Stores: Hop north to New York, where Manhattan's Generation Records and A1 Records anchor the East Village dig, Brooklyn's Academy and Captured Tracks Shop carry the borough's indie pulse, and the Caribbean diaspora across Crown Heights and Flatbush keeps reggae, soca, and dancehall on regular rotation.
New Jersey Record Stores: Cross north to New Jersey, where Princeton Record Exchange stays the Northeast's heaviest-traffic used-record stop, Newark's diaspora-rooted shops carry the Jersey side of the Caribbean import network, and the Asbury Park boardwalk stores keep the Springsteen pilgrim trade alive year-round.
Massachusetts Record Stores: Head north to Massachusetts, where Boston's Newbury Comics legacy stores anchor a deep punk and indie circuit, Caribbean diaspora communities across Boston and Brockton keep reggae and soca in steady rotation, and Cambridge's college-town shops cover everything from jazz to hardcore.
Georgia Record Stores: Travel northwest to Georgia, where Athens still hosts Wuxtry and the ghosts of R.E.M. and the B-52's, Atlanta's Little Five Points runs Criminal Records and Wax 'N' Facts as a daily clinic on trap, soul, and indie, and the city's Caribbean community keeps dancehall and reggae shops stocked across the southside.
At Record Store Directory, every shoreline is an invitation to keep exploring. Share your finds, connect with fellow collectors, and chase down that next unforgettable album, because the perfect record is always closer than you think.
Happy hunting, and we'll see you in the next stack!
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