Did you just buy a record player and realize you’re surprisingly low on music to play on it? You’re not alone: everyone has to start their vinyl collection somewhere. That means getting some of your favorite music in analog format.

The center of gravity for vinyl collectors, sellers, and independent record stores alike is Discogs. The platform allows folks to buy, sell, and trade discs from their collections. There are rarities aplenty, but also lots of deals and desirable titles. This is the best place to find albums, singles, and box sets, since nearly everything that's ever been pressed to plastic is in the Discogs database, and somebody in the site's global marketplace has a sales listing for what you're hoping to buy.

If you're looking for truly independent music from all over the globe, select the Vinyl tab at the top of the Bandcamp homepage and get to browsing. You may have to do a bit of digital crate digging to find something that you like, but you can search for music using genre tags, by filtering searches to see what's newly released, or by browsing geographic locations. For an easy place to start, check out Bandcamp's daily blog to find the editorial staff's recommendations.

As with anything collectible, you can find good deals (and occasional ripoffs; be careful) on eBay. We'd still recommend sticking to Discogs for the expensive or rare items, but eBay is a good place to buy lots of super-cheap records that you're willing to gamble on. People often sell records in lots of 10 or 25. You'll also encounter auctions of entire record collections from estate sales here where some gems are mixed in with the dross.

Folks who remember the pre-streaming era are likely to recall Tower Records, which still exists! The store's online shop has lots of vinyl for sale, especially of mainstream releases. This is a great place to check out what is coming soon on vinyl from the biggest names in the business by browsing the preorder listings.