Vietnam Record Shops

In 2006, Onra, a French-Vietnamese hip hop beatmaker came to Ho Chi Minh City, stumbled through some back alleys and shops and brought out 30 or so old Chinese and Vietnamese vinyl records. He took samples from these records and created an album called Chinoiseries which was widely acclaimed.

A sampling of Onra

While the album features Chinese ballads more than Vietnamese, it gave me hope that there was still lots of vinyl to be had in town; a personal collection hobby of mine.  In the States I can go to any Goodwill or Salvation Army thrift store and find an assortment of cast aside records. Vinyl has even had a bit of a comeback with plenty of folks in my generation enjoying becoming collectors again, even in the ever increasing digital age.

I had a modest collection before I came to Vietnam, which I passed on for safekeeping. Since then I've wanted to have a bit of a collection here. I have a small assortment of 33's and 45's now, mostly courtesy of my parents' collection and a few I picked up in the States.

My modest collection

I've always asked people if they knew where I could score some vinyl in town and didn't get many results until today when a guy told us about the de facto "old electronic" market in District 10.  After a jaunt there and asking around at various places we found at least 2 shops with records scattered among old radios, speakers, fans and assorted varieties of antique lover's dreams.

And what did I find? The Byrds and Beegees among some French mixes and a surprising amount of Russian discs.  My guess is these all made it in to the black market during the time when records would still have been the main medium of music listening (which even in the 70's was being replaced by reel to reel tapes, a predecessor to cassettes). The best find? A 45 record of The Archies "Sugar Sugar" which was in a handwritten case that said "Sugar Sugar, tp. Ho Chi Minh 29/03/1976." I was tempted to buy it just for the historical insight.  Can you imagine a group of Saigonese listening to "Sugar Sugar" in secret during the height of the crackdown on illegal goods such as that one?

As for Vietnamese the only options were really cai luong operas, nothing really that exciting, but the owner has our name and number now and promised to call if something else should come in.