BUENOS AIRES

In Buenos Aires there must be thousands and thousands of nice CD Shops (Almost as much as there are book shops). Fortunately, some of the best shops are located pratically on the same quarter downtown. Rainbow is one of them. With two locations inside a single gallery, it features lots of bootleg CDs from Italy and rare stuff. The only bad thing there is that they won't allow you to hear anything. Buy at your own risk.

RARE RECORDS - Galeria Paseo Lavalle, Av. Lavalle, 835 - Local 31.

Located on the same gallery as RAINBOW, this shop also sells rare and bootleg material.

WHISKY Á GO GO - Esmeralda, 494

Have you noticed how argentinians like to use names in english for CD shops ? Well, WHISKY Á GO GO may be the most complete shop of this quarter. Their façade reads "Ultra Rare Tracks", and it's true. The shop has a great variety of stuff, old and new, and, bingo, these guys will let you hear whatever you want (as long as you enter the line: they only got one cd player).

DISCOMANIA - Esmeralda, 600, in the corner with Tucumán.

Huge shop in a corner down the same street. The most recent releases and some old and used Cds. Be prepared to find real bargains, with really excellent CDs marked as cheap as 5 or 8 dollars.

BONE MACHINE - Galeria Jardin, !st floor, Loc. 433 - Calle Florida, in front of McDonalds.

Every city has its most well-guarded secret. Here it is. Upstairs in a gallery crowded by computer shops lies this little shop ran by a guy named Oswaldo. Here I found the most unusual stuff, some CDs I had never seen in my life. Ask Oswaldo to play for you some of his pop treasures, mainly from the eighties, and if the CD you want isn't avaliable at the moment, just ask him to send you by mail. This shop is even better if you are specially interested in Queen, Roxette, Duran Duran, Madonna, or the Pet Shop Boys.

STIGMATA RECORDS - Defensa, 1179. local 18 - Paseo de la Defensa San Telmo.

Buying rock CDs can be very turistical too. This shop, full of alternative records, is located in the middle of the historical San Telmo neighborhood, where the San Telmo flea market happens every sunday. As the shop opens at sundays during the market hours, come visit them in this charming gallery between one tango and another.

MUSIMUNDO - Everywhere in Buenos Aires.

A world capital wouldn't be a world capital without its huge shop. MUSIMUNDO is located in every corner downtown, in every large avenue and in every shopping of the city. The latest releases, with cabins for you to hear them, some nice offers, but nothing more than the obvious.

MR FLOYD RECORDS - Av.Cabildo 2606

I haven't been to this shop, but Nuri sent me an e-mail telling that this shop "specializes in 70's-60's progressive rock, psicodelia, blues, rockabilly, country (USA), jazz & fussion, world music (celtic-african-arabic), japanese editions, boots from many progressive and rock bands, ltd editions,box sets, some memorabilia, and much much more, as vinyl. They also sell-trade-buy used cd's."He also tells that MR. FLOYD is the biggest cd store from this kind in Argentina.

Brazil, Belgium, England, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg , Norway, Russia, Spain, Sweden.