Apart from what's mentioned above, there's the following shops that I tend to go to:
- Berwick Street in Soho for Reckless Records and Sister Ray
- Music & Video Exchange in Notting Hill - three floors of vinyl and CDs (and cassettes too). There's a bargain basement, but on the ground floor there are also lots of £1 CDs as well as a CD singles section. Upstairs is Soul and Dance. There's also an Oxfam nearby with some CDs, and also Oxfam Bookshop on Portobello Road which also stocks CDs and vinyl (Oxfam is a charity shop i.e. thrift store)
- Flashback Records in Shoreditch, plus there are other record shops around in the area such as Rough Trade, as well as some vendors in Spitalfields Market (which itself is a nice place)
- There's an Oxfam music shop in Ealing Broadway (you can get there with the Elizabeth Line). Nearby is the Pitzhanger Museum and Art Gallery, former home of architect Sir John Soane - beautiful venue, and there's a nice park behind it
- If you have a day free you can wander over to Greenwich where there are lots of attractions, plus there is another Music & Video Exchange there with a bargain basement.
- apart from these there's also HMV on Oxford Street and Fopp in Covent Garden
If pressed for time, I would start with Berwick Street, Notting Hill and Marylebone High Street as they're the most centrally located
