By Taylor Allen
The view inside Paradise Found Records and Music. Boulder, CO, Thursday, April 16, 2026. (Radio 1190/Taylor Allen)
Classic rock shuffles softly overhead as a customer flips through rows of tightly packed vinyl when suddenly, they freeze. A squeal cuts through the music as they pull up a long sought vinyl, their face lighting up with joy.
Behind the counter, Will Paradise smiles. He’s seen that reaction hundreds of times. To him, it never gets old.
“It’s everyone’s favorite part of the job,” Paradise says. “The excitement of the person who finds that record in the store they’ve been looking for for years.”
At the east end of Pearl Street Mall sits Paradise Found Records and Music. Despite growing demand, Paradise Found is the only record store in Boulder. Holding down the stakes is Will Paradise, a lifelong vinyl collector who turned his passion into a local enterprise.
Paradise began collecting vinyl at just 8 years old, starting with The Beatles. Over time, he has collected nearly 2,500 records in his personal collection, and stocks between 18,000 to 20,000 records in the store.
The shop wasn’t always known as Paradise Found. Ten years ago, it was instead known as Bart’s Records. In 2016, shortly after he retired from his previous job, Will Paradise purchased the store to create what is now Paradise Found.
“There were three record stores in town, and Bart’s record shop was the best one. I made an offer and it all worked out– it was meant to be,” he said.
Eventually, Paradise Found moved to a more central location. The first weekend in April of this year, Paradise and his team celebrated 5 years at the Pearl Street location.
His staff is extremely valuable to him; most employees have worked with him since the opening of the store.“You come to work every day and just love it because there’s not a lot of pressure and people are in a good mood, and it’s fun,” Will said.
Upon immediate entry to the store, there is a section labeled “Rolling Stone Top 100.” This was the first order of business when Will Paradise bought the store. These bins feature the top 100 albums as published by Rolling Stone.
“When I bought the record store before, I realized we didn’t have 60 of the top 100 records,” he said. “You’ve gotta carry the records that people look for.”
The rest of the store holds thousands of records across all genres.
“We have an amazing world section, and we’re on top of new releases and new artists,” Paradise said. Last year, vinyl sales in the U.S. reached over $1 billion for the first time since 1983.
“Vinyl sales have been booming for the last ten years, and demand is four times the supply,” he informed. According to Paradise, working with supply is the biggest challenge of running the shop, as even the most popular records often go out of press and take months to return to shelves.
For Will Paradise, the real payoff isn’t in record sales; it’s in the connections formed between the shelves. He shares that many of his close friends were once customers at the store, where their mutual love of music helped cultivate an unbreakable bond.
“Between working with the staff we have, and the customers that we have now, it’s a community,” he said. “What brings everybody together is music. It’s all about music.”
”Music makes people happy, makes people feel good, so this is sort of a feel-good place,” Will said. His philosophy and passion echo through every corner of the shop.