In this video I’m record shopping in beautiful Edinburgh, starting right under the shadow of Edinburgh Castle and working my way down the Royal Mile. I lined up five shops—Slow Progress Records & Coffee, Underground Solution, Thorne Records, Umbrella Vinyl, and Assai Records—and in between we ducked into some of the city’s most historic pubs to debrief properly. I love how each shop had its own niche: Slow Progress leans guitar-driven rock and indie (with a great local coffee setup), Underground Solution has that long-running “all formats welcome” energy, Thorne is bright, new-vinyl focused and curated for what Edinburgh actually buys, and Umbrella Vinyl is a proper secondhand “global sounds” treasure trove. Along the way I picked up a few records that tell you exactly where my head’s been lately: a bit of a ’90s nostalgia trip (Primal Scream, Stone Roses, Prodigy, and a limited 7-inch of The Verve’s Bittersweet Symphony), plus a punt on Woo after a staff recommendation—because I genuinely believe in the serendipity of record shops. I also grabbed Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Stadium Arcadium because, frankly, the CD sounds terrible and the vinyl cut is far more listenable. The big takeaway: Edinburgh’s record culture is thriving because the shops are distinct, community-led, and still built around discovery—not algorithms.