Ms. Gibson has never really abandoned her roots, her style or her taste in music, which she refers to as “newstalgic,” meaning nostalgic, yet forward-looking. In that vein, she selected a Phil Spector Christmas album, then circled back to pop, picking up the Bonzie album on the way. In pop, she found Kylie Minogue’s “Disco” album.
“That’s the fun prize,” she said. “I always feel like Kylie is my long-lost sister.”
A seven-inch by a band called Habibi caught her eye and she asked an employee in a burnt orange jumpsuit about the single. “Really psychedelic,” the employee, Lauren Jefferson, said. “Do you want to hear it?” Ms. Gibson did.
She took the seven-inch, too, plus an iron-on patch with a picture of a van and a legend that read, “Holidays in the Sun.”
She thought about adding a hand-knit pink sweater, but passed when Ms. Jefferson told her the price ($310). “That’s an investment for a novelty sweater,” Ms. Gibson said. And she declined a set of remastered Billy Joel albums, as they seemed like a lot to carry on the plane. Besides, she already had all of the originals.
Before paying, she asked the store manager if Rough Trade carried any of her records. She hadn’t seen them in the pop section. “Are they actively still in print?” George Flanagan asked. They weren’t. But a vinyl issue of “The Body Remembers,” her tenth studio album which was released last year, was due out on Jan. 21.
“Come back,” Mr. Flanagan said. “Sign some copies.”
“That would be fun,” she said.
