One of the best online music shops is Manchester based Boomkat Ltd…read more Run by a group of passionate music promoters and deejays, it stocks a wide variety of incredible underground and eclectic music from a wealth of international labels. We're talking beautiful electro, IDM, broken beats, grime, ragga, dancehall, dub, deep house, disco-not-disco, no wave, post-punk, psyche-folk, bluegrass, weird country, gospel, drone, classical, musique concrete and everything inbetween! If you''re the kind of music fan that spends your free time surfing and crate-digging for Kraftwerk or Steve Reich rarities, chances are you already order lots of stuff from here. If you're not familiar with them, sign up for their weekly newsletter giving you details of their new releases. Each one comes with a link so you can hear samples of tracks and they sell vinyl, CDs, tapes, MP3s and Flax recordings. They also sell soundtracks so I'm sure there'd be something to please my favourite Stuart Copeland fan in Baltimore :)

A bit old fashioned compared to the trend for large outlets. This is a small store with a family…read morerun feel, lots of weird and wonderful stock. Like most music shops they can get back copies of stuff and are happy to help. Support your local stores.

Every time I see you falling, I get down on my knees and pray for a Blue Monday…read more So this is simply one of the greatest bands of all time, and one which I still listen to now, to this day, and it all began after having bought (The Best Of) New Order when I was about 10 years old, and having never looked back. So I've been listening to this stuff for decades now and hopefully I will be able to listen to it for decades more. True Faith and Bizarre Love Triangle and 1963 were the first 3 on the cassette, and were the best for me, along with Vanishing Point and also a few of the others, and the ending World In Motion which despite 3 Lions is still the greatest football song in the history of football songs.

Whether they'll get back together and make another album remains questionable but for many music…read morelovers, New Order remain the quintessential Manchester band. Formed out of the ashes of Joy Division, New Order revolved around the magical partnership of Bernard Sumner's vocals, Peter Hook's basslines, Stephen Morris's drumbeats and Gillian Gilbert's synths. Together the quartet made a string of awesome singles that were as inspired by New York electro and Chicago house as much as British post-punk. They might have lost a ton of money by releasing 'Blue Monday' in a drop-dead-gorgeous sleeve but they should rest assured they put out the best 12" in musicial history! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJN_vgyx74M If you don't already own their back catalogue, I suggest you head over to Vinyl Exchange or Piccadilly Records and start digging in the crates. From Technique and Movement to Power, Corruption and Lies, its packed with perfectly crafted gems. New Order, New York & pizza: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iKyPMXQb5o

Ashton wh smith is the worst disrespectfull workers when im sending a package especially the indian…read morewomen that works there she is the worst loud mouth and worst attitude i have ever seen in a worker she starts arguing with you be talking to a diffrent worker she will just start talking inbetween for no reason instead of focusing on her own customer

A pretty nice WH Smith location for a small town, although it isn't the new-style, modern format…read morewhich is mainly in larger towns and cities, and shopping malls, it still remains a pretty good store, located inside Ashton-Under-Lyne's The Arcades' mall. The book selection is pretty good, it's the best bricks and mortar retailer in the town if you're looking for books, the prices obviously are more than Amazon. It also is home to a decent selection of stationary and the post-office. The typical old-fashioned WHSmith decor in older stores remains, the carpet is less than ideal as it looks ragged and dirty, I much prefer the wooden style floors in their newer stores. Still a pretty decent WH Smith location, useful location within the town offering some decent services. 3*

HMV in the Stockport Merseyway Centre is quite a poor branch of HMV in my opinion, despite being a…read moredecent size store over two floors, my first complaint is I was told there wasn't a lift by the member of staff, so i couldn't go upstairs, I'm not sure if there was one and it wasn't working or they didn't have one all together especially when considering most of the things seem to be on the upper floor including Games and Technology with as Music and Vinyl being on the Ground Floor. I came in here today after being a little dissapointed with the selection of games at Grainger Games, looking to pick up FIFA 16 on the Xbox 360, there was originally confusion over staff members not listening to me, who thought i asked for the 2017 version when I did not, so I waited and waited some-more only to then be told I had to go to the till. At the till, after waiting for a few minutes while the man got back to me, I was told straight away they don't stock the 2016 version, which basically was my time wasted as the member of staff didn't check this first and just was a little arrogant thinking HMV Stockport were the best and stocked everything. I also was really upset at the volume of music in the store, it was like a nightclub so communication was hard, it was just far too loud and it wasn't very nice to shop with the music at that volume, so I just tried to get out of the store as soon as I could because it wasn't a nice place to be, so sadly I feel this store only deserves a single one star rating due to issues with the staff, product range, music and lack of a lift.

A really impresive big store located in the main shopping area (Merseyway) of stockport town…read morecentre, with a great layout and lots of offer instore its really good place to look for bargins, although some products I saw I have seen cheaper elsewhere in the last few weeks, did manage to get some good offers on Dr Who DVD's, and some older films and a couple of books so was very happy, but I would recommend you shop around first and check out the deals they have on.

Ah, Oasis. How appropriately Mancunian. Okay, we're not talking about the Gallagher-led band here,…read morealthough I'm currently racking my brains to think of another shop which shares its name with a musical outfit. Answers on a postcard please, and send Drumstick lollies. Oasis is a King Street shop I love, but only during sale time. Still, the boutique boulevard setting always makes for a relaxed and attractive browse, and if you can wait long enough for the sales, it's worthwhile. You can get some really stylish smart clothes here, as well as gorgeous summer stuff - two noteworthy items of mine that fall into those categories are a grey asymmetrical short sleeved and fitted smart dress, ideal for the office or posh lunches, and a crocheted white three quarter length sleeve dress which just cried out long summer evenings and appealed to the hippy in me. These cost me around £35 (down from over £70) and a tenner respectively. Can't really argue with that... The King Street branch also has an upstairs which means there's plenty of variety on offer, including accessories, jewellery, shoes, bags, scarves and so on. Plus it has that boutiquey feel, as do all the shops along this road set within their old, pretty buildings. Oasis during sale time, it really does live up to its name. Refreshment in the desert that is, not a bunch of swearing Mancunians. Although I haven't been in there when the staff are stressed out, mind...

This shop specialises in the sale of gramaphones and related antiques. They are all reconditioned…read moreand a real blast from the past. There is also a massive selection of gramaphone records. The chap who owns it is friendly and knowledgeable and the service is first class.

decent railway station shop, small but full of productsread more