1001 episodes of Amoeba’s What’s In My Bag?, 2007 to present, every picker and every record, indexed.
Since 2007, Amoeba has handed guests a bag, let them loose in the store, and filmed them talking through whatever they carried out. Musicians, mostly; also filmmakers, comedians, athletes and writers. The format hasn’t changed.
The complete catalogue of every record anyone has ever pulled out of the bag. Each sleeve links back to the picker who reached for it — and to everyone else who reached for the same record.
Browse 5200+ records →Musicians, filmmakers, athletes, comedians, novelists and DJs — 964 of them, each given one bag and forty minutes to talk about the records they pulled off the shelves.
Browse 964 pickers →
No editorial, no algorithm. Just a ranked count of which sleeves show up most often when the cameras roll. The shape of the canon is steep — one record well clear of the field, then a long tail the room agrees on but doesn't fight for.
See the full canon →
Stephen O’Malley and Greg Anderson of Sunn O))) go record shopping at Amoeba San Francisco in this "What's In My Bag?" episode. Their eclectic selections span jazz, heavy metal, Japanese and Indian classical music, experimental and electro-acoustic composers & more. Sunn O))) , the band's eponymous …
![Gil Scott-Heron — Legend In His Own Mind (feat. Amnesia Express) [Live, Bremen, 1983]](https://is1-ssl.mzstatic.com/image/thumb/Music116/v4/80/4d/42/804d42c4-1ead-25d3-a7bb-b34512b67db4/cover.jpg/300x300bb.jpg)
“Got a Rosalía record, LUX. Pretty interesting and weird like use of choir and orchestra. She played in Paris recently. Some friends of mine went. Had strongly different opinions. Like the young person who's 9 years old fell asleep the whole time. The old person, the father, was blown away 'cause she's using like flamenco group doing clapping and there was a full symphony orchestra in the middle of the arena playing.”Watch this moment
Amoeba Music opened in 1990 in a converted bowling alley on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley. Three former Rasputin Music employees wanted a store that took every format seriously: new, used, vinyl, CD, cassette, the bargain bin and the rare-records glass case, all in one room.
The What's In My Bag? series began at the Hollywood store in 2007 and has run ever since. 1001 episodes. This is the archive.
The largest of the three. Where most What's In My Bag? episodes were filmed.
The original. A converted bowling alley two blocks from campus.
Built inside an old bowling alley on Haight Street, west of Ashbury.
![Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) [Expanded Edition]](https://is1-ssl.mzstatic.com/image/thumb/Music221/v4/7c/58/b1/7c58b153-2525-d47f-ab7a-9c9fe6882826/888880400017.jpg/160x160bb.jpg)
