Northampton has more than one record shop worth a special trip, and Turn It Up! has been part of that scene since 1995, making it one of the longer running independent music retailers in the Pioneer Valley. Unlike a single storefront operation, Turn It Up! has grown into a small regional chain with three locations across the Northeast: the flagship in downtown Northampton, a second store in Brattleboro, Vermont, and a third tucked inside the well known Montague Bookmill in Montague, Massachusetts, a former grist mill turned bookstore and shopping destination along the Sawmill River. That three location footprint sets Turn It Up! apart from most independent record stores in the region, giving collectors reason to check inventory across more than one town when hunting for a specific title.
The business model is built around new and used music and movies, with the shop describing its focus as vintage catalog paired with current artist releases, so a visit might turn up a decades old pressing next to a new release from a band still touring today. Turn It Up! buys, sells, and trades CDs, LPs, movies, and other media, and the shop adds new stock to its shelves daily, which keeps the bins from going stale even for regular customers who stop in often. For anyone sitting on a large personal collection, the shop is known for going well beyond a simple walk in appraisal: staff will drive across New England to evaluate and purchase sizable collections in person, a service that has helped the shop become a destination for sellers as much as buyers. Special orders are also part of the business for customers chasing a specific CD, LP, or movie title not currently in stock.
Beyond the physical stores, Turn It Up! maintains an online rare items shop and an active presence on Discogs, the marketplace most serious vinyl collectors already use to track down out of print or hard to find pressings, extending the shop’s reach well beyond whoever happens to walk through the Northampton, Brattleboro, or Montague doors on a given day. The shop keeps in touch with customers through Instagram and Facebook, posting new arrivals and highlighting standout finds as they land on the shelves, and reachable directly by email for special order inquiries.
Downtown Northampton itself is one of western Massachusetts’s best known small city shopping and arts districts, home to Smith College and a dense strip of independent bookstores, boutiques, and music venues that has long drawn both college students and weekend visitors from across the Pioneer Valley. A record shop that has operated continuously in that setting since 1995 has effectively grown up alongside multiple generations of Northampton’s music scene, buying and selling collections as tastes and formats have shifted from cassette to CD to the current vinyl resurgence. For collectors, casual browsers, or anyone looking to sell a collection rather than just buy from one, Turn It Up! offers three separate stops across the Northeast under one roof of shared inventory and expertise. In short, Turn It Up! is a Northeast independent record and movie retailer founded in 1995, with locations in Northampton, Brattleboro, and the Montague Bookmill, built around buying, selling, and trading new and used music and film.
