Goodbye to Discos Revolver and, therefore, goodbye to an icon of Tallers street and, therefore, goodbye to an important part of Barcelona’s recent history. Founded in December 1991, Discos Revolver will say goodbye this month with its traditional July liquidation, as announced on Facebook.
The decision has come as a cold shower for thousands of customers and regular musicians, who lament that, despite the rise of vinyl and a loyal community of “diehards”, the store has failed to hold its own in the face of digitization and the dominance of platforms like Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube. Its owner, Nuria Arso, admits in an interview with El País that “the business is not what it was 25 years ago”, although it is resisting thanks to that passionate public.
However, there is one consolation: its sister store, Revólver Records (Tallers Street, 11) will continue to operate, and it has just received the Fonograma 2024 award from APECAT as one of the best 50 independent record stores in Catalonia. Even so, the closure of this store is a new blow for the musical culture of proximity.
This goodbye will not go unnoticed: Revolver was more than a store, it was a sanctuary for collectors, a meeting point for generations and a bastion of analog culture in Barcelona. Now, it will be, first, one more closed shutter and, later on, it is likely to be another overpriced store that no proposal with a personality that hopes to take root in Barcelona will be able to access.
Whoever wants to can go one last time this July, during which the store will remain open with significant discounts that seek to say goodbye to the genre.