Amoeba Music: Staying Put (for Now)

The doted-upon vinyl-and-more shop isn't meeting the wrecking ball at present, despite word on the street.

The history of popular songcraft brims with ditties detailing the lives and heartbeat of our cities and towns, and how the places we call home greatly evolve over time, for better or worse.

What is less expected is a vibrant, much-visited center for those songs to be a part of those changes.

Word broke after the weekend that Amoeba Music, the capacious shop at Sunset and Cahuenga Boulevards housing all of tunedom, or seemingly so, might be due for a date with a certain hard-material ball made for wrecking (another popular theme in contemporary music-makery).

The independent record store outfit, which had its start in Berkeley over a quarter century ago, was going to make room in Hollywood for a new building. (Public records reveal the sale of Amoeba's current home went down last fall, per Time Out Los Angeles.)

But, like so many excellent concept albums or epic love songs, there's a twist: Amoeba Hollywood is not going anywhere for "several years" per an update on the store's Instagram page. 

The shop, which is due to mark its 15th anniversary in Tinseltown in November, is riding out its lease, which has a ways to go. Even more heartening for fans? "...Amoeba and the building owner are open to us potentially staying longer."

The final upshot of it all, in the end? Well, this much we know, from the Instagram post, which is a handwritten note: Amoeba Music "is committed to staying in Hollywood."

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That looks to be at its current home for years to come, so breathe a sigh, people who love flipping through album after album over the course of a perfect Saturday afternoon. Your go-to is not gone, nor will it be, for a good amount of time.

The needle, in other words, has not reached the record's final groove. Best stay tuned to see what's on the B side.

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