At a festive awards ceremony held at the Rheinterrassen in Cologne, the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media, Claudia Roth, honoured the winners of EMIL_ The German Record Store Award 2024 last week.

An independent jury of nine experts and industry representatives had selected 14 record stores in four categories from a total of almost 100 applications:

✔️ Best record store
✔️ Outstanding record store – new establishment
✔️ Outstanding record store – innovation
✔️ Outstanding record store – economically underdeveloped region

For us as a record manufacturer, record stores are our most important allies, alongside musicians, artists and labels. Without their enthusiasm, passion, flair, courage and innovative spirit, the music landscape would be much poorer.

For this very reason, and as a token of our appreciation, we have sponsored part of this award – the very special 7″ single with two original recordings by Emil Berliner, after whom the award is named. One of the two recordings is also the very first sound recording ever to appear on a record.

And these are the best record stores in Germany in 2024:

Der Plattenladen (Freiburg)
Fatplastics (Jena)
VARY (Leipzig)
Bebop Schallplatten (Rosenheim)
Coretex Records (Berlin)
Drop Out Records (Dresden)
Optimal Records (München)
Groove City Recordstore (Hamburg)
Kontor Records (Kyritz)
Sound Metaphors (Berlin)
Studio illegale (Bremen)
Underdog Recordstore (Köln)
Underworld Recordstore (Chemnitz)
Vinylnerds (Übersee)

Support your local record store – anywhere!