A Starkville staple and cherished record store will close its doors for the last time Saturday. Bebop Records, located in one of the oldest shopping centers on Highway 12, is being forced to close after more than 25 years due to a slowdown in business and increased rent for its location. “We’re closing because the shopping center owners want to renovate and triple our rent,” Bebop Record’s co-owner Kathy Morrison said. “We wanted to stay, but the increase in rent would make our rent more per square foot than what we pay for our locations in Jackson.”
The record store has been tucked away in the same shopping center since it opened.
For decades, MSU students and members of the Starkville community have been able to find the off-beat and hard to find albums they seek.
“I think it’s a drag. It’s bad because this is the only non-commercial store in town that you can get hard-to-find titles,” said Lee Graham, an eight-year employee of the store. “We’ve always been cheaper than everyone else and stayed competitive.”
Also, since digital downloading has become a popular way for consumers to get their music, independent record stores have felt the pinch.
Morrison said the rent increase pushed Bebop over the edge.
“For a while, it had been on a month-to-month as to if we would stay open,” Bebop co-owner Drake Elder said. “As long as our overhead was low we could afford to stay, but we just can’t afford the new rent we are being asked to pay.”
“Also, nowadays, people think music should be free. When someone downloads an album and burns copies for their friends it really kills the smaller record stores. Especially with the down turn of record sales, illegal downloads hurt everyone,” he said.
“The big stores like Wal-Mart and Target also get such huge deals from the record companies. Those stores will sell an album below what we can get it at cost. We can’t compete with that.”
Even though Starkville’s Bebop is closing, there are still three locations operated by Morrison and Elder that are open in Jackson.
“We’ll move our stock from up here down to our Jackson store, but we hate to leave here,” Morrison said.
“It really sucks,” said Ross James, Bebop customer. “We just came by to check out some music and found the store is closing. We didn’t have a clue.”
“We like it here because we could find obscure stuff,” said Mary Clare, another Bebop customer. “We could come in here and find a lot of good jam bands and blues [artists].”
Bebop Records will stay open until Saturday to appease the last few customers that want to come by.
“We’ll have everything on sale here, kind of a farewell to Starkville,” Elder said.