Above one of the Square’s most prominent and historic boutiques sits a record store that provides a whistle of audible art to the streets of Oxford. Founded in March 2012, The End of All Music has been equipping college students and Oxford residents with a vast collection of physical records, CDs, cassette tapes and more for over a decade.
Now dubbed “the record guy” by customers of the long-standing record store and fellow Oxonians, The End of All Music founder David Swider has been a familiar face in Oxford for years. He left his hometown of Greenwood, Miss., in 2003 to attend the University of Mississippi and earned degrees in both journalism and English in 2008. During and after his collegiate endeavors, he worked at Square Books but wrapped up his time with them in 2011 to work toward opening The End of All Music.
Though Swider would not consider himself a collector of records, he would certainly consider himself a “record-buyer.” When traveling to any town, Swider says that the first question he asks is, “Where is the record store?” Swider felt certain that he was not the only music connoisseur in Oxford, and when this mindset was mixed with his deep affection for music, he found ample motivation to kickstart the store.
“It started out with just selfishly wanting my own place to go buy records, but if I feel this way, surely there’s a market for other people that feel this way in this town — especially with it (being) a transient college town,” Swider said. “If 10 freshmen can come through every year and be into buying records, we might be alright.”
With the Double Decker Arts Festival and International Record Store Day both taking place in April, Swider said the spring month is easily his busiest time of year. Interestingly, he revealed that Double Decker creates more attendance at the store, but Record Store Day is the lead time where its business really booms.
“I think Double Decker is more of just people wanting to come to town because it’s a free festival. Record Store Day, on the other hand, is more for people who buy records,” Swider said. “I’m not saying people that come to Double Decker don’t buy records — we have a really busy day — but they’re not (solely) record-buying fans like on Record Store Day.”
Whether they are music-loving Ole Miss students or die-hard record collectors, Swider welcomes fans of all music genres into his store.
“There’s no such thing as good music,” Swider said. “Everybody’s subjective. Everybody’s got their opinion. I think we do a good job of catering to just about any kind of music fan, and that’s a big part of what I wanted The End of All Music to be for Oxford — you can come in here and feel comfortable no matter what you’re into.”
Creating an environment open to all music tastes has paid off in Swider’s point of view. The environment he has created over the last decade has provided him with relationships that may not have been formed without it.
“I have made some lifelong friends doing this — both with customers that have come in that I don’t consider customers anymore and (with) old employees that are now family to me,” Swider said. “We have our doors open and allow literally anybody that wants to come in, as long as they’re not being an a—hole. They’re welcome here, for sure, and that’s not going to change. And I give Oxford props for letting us be that way.”
