One of Edinburgh’s longest-running independent record shops is to close after more than four decades in business.
Vinyl Villains, which has traded from 5 Elm Row at the top of Leith Walk since 1983, will shut its doors in January 2027 as owner Andy Watters retires.
The distinctive shop has become an Edinburgh institution for generations of music fans, specialising in rare and collectable vinyl alongside CDs, DVDs, band T-shirts and music books.
Watters, 69, opened Vinyl Villains with his friend John Edwards after he suggested setting up a record shop.
The business went on to survive enormous changes in the music industry, including the collapse in vinyl sales during the CD and digital music boom of the late 1990s and early 2000s.
Watters said the shop “only just” survived that period before benefiting from the revival of vinyl record sales in recent years.
Its shelves have remained particularly strong in rock and punk, while also stocking jazz, soul, reggae, blues and folk. Much of its business has been built around second-hand and deleted records which are difficult to find elsewhere.
News of the closure has prompted disappointment among customers, although Watters said the decision was simply about reaching retirement age and wanting to see what else he might do.
He said: “I’m not getting any younger and I want to see if there’s anything else I want to do in my life.”
Watters told the Edinburgh Evening News that the closure was not prompted by an approaching rent rise.
The shop’s departure will also mark another change for the top of Leith Walk.
Watters said the street was almost unrecognisable compared with the area where Vinyl Villains opened in the early 1980s, pointing to the growing number of cafés and the disappearance of traditional independent retail businesses.
The Deep Sea Takeaway closed earlier this month after more than a century in business.
Edinburgh still has a strong independent record shop scene, including Assai Records, Underground Solu’shn, VoxBox Music and Thorne Records, but Vinyl Villains belongs to an earlier generation of shops which helped establish the city’s record-buying culture.
As far back as 2012, Watters was warning that economic pressures and online shopping had wiped out many independent record retailers. Vinyl Villains nevertheless continued trading for another 14 years.
A lifelong music fan, he described running a record shop as his “ideal job”.